The use of metabolic inhibitors in the analysis of eukaryotic DNA repair

By now, it is well established that DNA repair can be inhibited. It is not surprising that many inhibitors of replicative DNA synthesis also effect repair, since the two processes involve similar biochemical steps carried out by analogous if not identical enzymes. No specific inhibitors of repair are known, and care must be taken when interpreting results to be sure that observed effects of inhibitors unambiguously relate to repair. With this caveat, it remains true that inhibitors are valuable tools for the dissection of repair pathways in the classic biochemical fashion, looking for accumulation of intermediates at a point before the enzymic step that is blocked.