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Updated: Aug 9, 2026

Assessment of Global DNA Double-Strand End Resection using BrdU-DNA Labeling coupled with Cell Cycle Discrimination Imaging
Published on: April 28, 2021
Base excision repair fidelity in normal and cancer cells
Katie K L Chan1, Qiu-Mei Zhang, Grigory L Dianov
1Radiation and Genome Stability Unit, Medical Research Council Harwell, Oxfordshire, UK.
Abstract:
In mammalian cells, base excision repair (BER) is the major repair pathway involved in the removal of non-bulky damaged nucleotides. The fidelity of BER is dependent on the polymerization step, where the major BER DNA polymerase (Pol beta) must incorporate the correct Watson-Crick base paired nucleotide into the one nucleotide repair gap. Recent studies have indicated that expression of some Pol beta variants or changes in expression of wild-type Pol beta protein, frequently found in cancer cells, can lead to DNA repair synthesis errors and confers to cells a mutator phenotype.
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