Human mismatch repair system balances mutation rates between strands by removing more mismatches from the lagging strand.

ABSTRACT: Mismatch repair (MMR) is one of the main systems maintaining fidelity of replication. Differences in correction of errors produced during replication of the leading and the lagging DNA strands were reported in yeast and in human cancers, but the causes of these differences remain unclear. Here, we analyze data on human cancers with somatic mutations in two of the major DNA polymerases, delta and epsilon, that replicate the genome. We show that these cancers demonstrate a substantial asymmetry of the mutations between the leading and the lagging strands. The direction of this asymmetry is the opposite between cancers with mutated polymerases delta and epsilon, consistent with the role of these polymerases in replication of the lagging and the leading strands in human cells, respectively. Mo

SUBMITTER: Andrianova MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5538550 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature