The biological and structural characterization of Mycobacterium tuberculosis UvrA provides novel insights into its mechanism of action.

ABSTRACT: Mycobacterium tuberculosis is an extremely well adapted intracellular human pathogen that is exposed to multiple DNA damaging chemical assaults originating from the host defence mechanisms. As a consequence, this bacterium is thought to possess highly efficient DNA repair machineries, the nucleotide excision repair (NER) system amongst these. Although NER is of central importance to DNA repair in M. tuberculosis, our understanding of the processes in this species is limited. The conserved UvrABC endonuclease represents the multi-enzymatic core in bacterial NER, where the UvrA ATPase provides the DNA lesion-sensing function. The herein reported genetic analysis demonstrates that M. tuberculosis UvrA is important for the repair of nitrosative and oxidative DNA damage. Moreover, our biochemic

SUBMITTER: Rossi F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3167621 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature