There are many ways in which the genetic material DNA can be damaged, resulting in the development of diseases such as cancer. Certain forms of DNA damage are associated with so-called R-loops. These are three-stranded structures consisting of two DNA strands and one RNA strand, whereby one of the DNA strands forms the loop. The level of R-loops needs to be strictly regulated to avoid genomic instability and consequent damage. Researchers at the Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) in Mainz have developed a new method that has allowed them to identify the proteins in the proximity of R-loops in human cells. They discovered that a tumor suppressor protein called DDX41 is responsible for preventing R-loops from building up in cells and that this is an important mechanism for preventing genomic instability and subsequent disease. The results were published in Nature Communications.
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Source: Phys.org