Interplay between DNA repair mechanisms in yeast and their crosstalk with other cellular processes

DNA repair is essential for the maintenance of genomic integrity and defect repair is associated with diseases as cancer, neurological disorders and aging. Unraveling the mechanism of DNA repair is therefore of fundamental importance and the present proje ct seeks to broaden our understanding of DNA repair mechanism. This will be approached by structural analysis of DNA repair proteins and by interaction studies of these proteins with cellular macromolecules. The highly conserved nature of DNA repair makes yeast as a suitable model organism and we will elucidate the interplay between various DNA repair pathways and the crosstalk between other cellular processes such as DNA replication, DNA recombination, transcription and chromosome dynamics by yeast mutan t analysis and by biochemical assays.