The 1987 Walter Hubert lecture. Regulation and deficiencies in DNA repair

A number of rare human inherited syndromes are associated with apparent defects in DNA repair and a greatly increased frequency of cancer. Cell lines derived from such individuals phenotypically resemble certain bacterial mutant strains that have increased sensitivity to radiation or chemical agents and well characterised repair defects. This analogy provides leads for unravelling the molecular alterations in such cancer-prone human cells. The inducibility of DNA repair enzymes is also reviewed. Exposure of bacteria to alkylating agents, or oxygen radicals, causes the overproduction of several novel and interesting repair activities, and the induced bacteria provide an abundant source of these proteins for purification and biological characterisation. Enzymes with the same defined specificities are often present in human cells, presumably serving the same functions as in microorganisms, but these activities are only constitutively expressed at low levels.