Structure and Function of SNM1 Family Nucleases
Hsuan-Yi Wu1, Yuanzhang Zheng1, Adrian R Laciak1
1Discovery Biology, Curia Inc., New York, USA.
Abstract:
Three human nucleases, SNM1A, SNM1B/Apollo, and SNM1C/Artemis, belong to the SNM1 gene family. These nucleases are involved in various cellular functions, including homologous recombination, nonhomologous end-joining, cell cycle regulation, and telomere maintenance. These three proteins share a similar catalytic domain, which is characterized as a fused metallo-β-lactamase and a CPSF-Artemis-SNM1-PSO2 domain. SNM1A and SNM1B/Apollo are exonucleases, whereas SNM1C/Artemis is an endonuclease. This review contains a summary of recent research on SNM1's cellular and biochemical functions, as well as structural biology studies. In addition, protein structure prediction by the artificial intelligence program AlphaFold provides a different view of the proteins' non-catalytic domain features, which may be used in combination with current results from X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM to understand their mechanism more clearly.
Related Concept Videos
Single-Strand DNA Binding Proteins
Nucleosome Remodeling
Nucleosome remodeling complex
Eukaryotic cells have specialized enzymes called ATP-dependent nucleosome remodeling enzymes. These enzymes...
Nucleoid
DNA Helicases
Mismatch Repair
The Replisome
The synthesis of the leading and lagging strands is a highly coordinated process. To explain this, the “Trombone model” was proposed by Bruce Alberts in 1980. The DNA loop formation starts when a primer is synthesized on the parent lagging strand. The loop grows with...


