Zebrafish Unga Is Required for Genomic Maintenance upon Genotoxic Stress and Male Fertility

DNA repair is a multifaceted biological process that involves multiple pathways to counter the types of damage the genome encounters throughout life. In the past decade zebrafish became a popular model organism to study various aspects of vertebrate DNA repair, and the characterization of several mutant lines deficient in key players of the repair pathways has significantly contributed to our understanding of the roles the corresponding proteins play in the maintenance of genomic integrity. Interestingly, the base-excision repair (BER) pathway remained one of the less characterized DNA repair processes in fish. Here we provide a detailed characterization of zebrafish deficient in one of the key components of BER, the uracil-DNA glycosylase Unga. We show that while these fish are viable, they display an altered response to genotoxic stress and unga mutant males show an interesting form of subfertility.