DNA聚合酶β可能参与了更广泛的细胞反应并引起遗传不稳定

近年来有关真核细胞中ＤＮＡ聚合酶的研究迅速增多。 1985年前 ,确认的ＤＮＡ聚合酶只有 3种 :聚合酶α、β以及线粒体聚合酶γ。时至今日已至少发现了 14种ＤＮＡ聚合酶 ,包括聚合酶α、β、γ、δ、ε、ζ、η、θ、ι、κ、λ、μ、ＲＥＶ1及ＭＵＳ30 8,在真核细胞ＤＮＡ的复制、修复、跨损伤合成、ＤＮＡ重组以及细胞周期调控等多种重要的生物代谢过程中发挥重要作用1] 。在一定程度上 ,细胞内的各种聚合酶均有其独特的功能和作用领域。如具有引物酶活性的聚合酶α的作用是启动ＤＮＡ复制并合成ＲＮＡ -ＤＮＡ引物 ;聚合酶δ和ε是主要…

Role of polymerase β in DNA metabolism and genomic instability

The major role of DNA polymerase β was thought to be limited in its involvement in short patch base excision repair by removing 5’-deoxyribose phosphate and base insertion. However, the recent researches indicate that polymerase β might take part in a wide spectrum of DNA metabolism reactions, including long patch base excision repair, DNA replication, recombination, meiosis and transleisional DNA synthesis. Because of its wide and important cellular function, an inappropriate intracellular polymerase β level might be associated with genomic instability. Down-regulation or mutation of polymerase β is mutagenic due to deficient in DNA repair, while overexpression of this error-prone β polymerase might perturb the normal function of other accurate polymerases and cause genomic instability as well.