Human embryo stem cells and DNA repair
Year: 2011
Type: editorial
Abstract: Pluripotent human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are able to differentiate in all different specialized tissues [1]. Yet, as all living cells, they have to cope with endogenous or exogenous DNA damage. Their efficacy in DNA repair is somewhat controversial. Clearly hESCs can achieve the indispensable genome stability either by more effective repair or, on the contrary, by increasing apoptosis thus eliminating defective cells. Previous papers reported increased repair efficiency and involvement of the errorfree homologous recombination (HR) pathway in hESCs [2, 3], and use of high-fidelity, ATM-independent nonhomologous end-joining (NHEJ) [4]. Those results support the hypothesis that hESCs, which have a short G1-phase and can then use HR in most of their cell-cycle [4] are more efficient than somatic cells in DNA double-strand break (DSBs) repair.
Source: Aging
Author: Marco Durante
Institution: GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research
Language: English
Topic: DNA Repair Mechanisms
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W202937464