Situation-dependent repair of DNA damage in yeast

The concept of channelling of lesions in DNA into defined repair systems has been used to explain many aspects of induced and spontaneous mutation. The channelling hypothesis states that lesions excluded from one repair process will be taken up by another repair process. This is a simplification. The three known modes of repair of damage induced by radiation are not equivalent modes of repair; they are, instead, different solutions to the problem of replacement of damaged molecules with new molecules which have the same informational content as those that were damaged. The mode of repair that is used is the result of the response to the situation in which the damage takes place. Thus, when the most likely mode of repair does not take place, then the situation changes with respect to the repair of the lesion; the lesion may enter the replication fork and be reparable by another route.