Project description:The physical properties of cell-free DNA fragments in plasma, such as fragment sizes and ends, have attracted much recent interest, leading to the emerging field of fragmentomics. This study attempted to further characterize the end structure of plasma DNA.
Project description:We discovered that the cell-free chromatin assembly system senses free DNA ends and mounts a DNA double-strand break response. DNA ends are first recognized by the Ku complex and later resected. The phosphorylation of H2A.V (homologous to gH2A.X) initiates at DNA breaks and spreads over ten thousands of base pairs of DNA within a few minutes. The phosphorylation of gH2A.V remains tightly associated with the damaged DNA in cis and does not transfer to intact DNA circles in the same reaction. Our descriptions of the damage-related proteome and phospho-proteome provide a rich resource for in-depth mechanistic analyses of the DNA chromosome break response in this model system.
Project description:In the bacterium Escherichia coli, RecBCD coordinates repair of two ends at a DNA double-strand break, preventing aberrant chromosome amplification