Professor Aidan Doherty, Genome Damage and Stability Centre, University of Sussex
Tuesday 13th February, 1.00 p.m., Stacey Lecture Theatre 1
To counteract DNA damage and maintain genome stability, cells have evolved a myriad of strategies for repairing and bypassing specific genetic lesions. This seminar will explore our current understand of how potentially lethal DNA lesions are repaired or tolerated by cells. I will describe how a number of recently discovered primase-polymerase (Prim-Pols) dependent repair mechanisms maintain genome stability in mycobacteria. I will also discuss how studying these Prim-Pol centric prokaryotic pathways led to the identification of a distinct damage tolerance enzyme called PrimPol, which operates in novel lesion bypass pathways that maintains genome stability in response to replicative stress in vertebrate cells.