The Rad52 SSAP superfamily and new insight into homologous recombination

Abstract

Rad52 is a highly conserved eukaryotic protein that can mediate the annealing of complementary DNA strands to initiate homologous recombination for the repair of double-strand breaks1. Suspicions that at least some prokaryotic single-strand annealing proteins (SSAPs) are related to Rad52 have been discussed for more than two decades. Two recent cryo-EM structures2,3 now put the issue beyond doubt. Recent structures of DNA-bound bacterial and phage recombinases provide insights into homologous recombination and suggest relation to the eukaryotic Rad52 and identification of a Rad52 single strand annealing protein (SSAP) superfamily.

Topics & Concepts