Human cells primarily use NHEJ for repairing DNA double-strand break (DSBs), but microbial systems primarily use homologous recombination for DSB repair. Are there bacteria and archaea with strong NHEJ systems more comparable to human cells?
John, this is an interesting question. I am not an expert in this field, but the literature suggests that many prokaryotes (for example Bacillus spores, Mycobacteria, some Archaea) have functional NHEJ. As a start, take a look at:
Shuman and Glickman. Bacterial DNA repair by non-homologous end joining. Nature Reviews Microbiology 5, 852-861 (November 2007)
Chayot et al. An end-joining repair mechanism in Escherichia coli. PNAS, 2010
Can anyone suggest bacteria or archeae that are particularly strong in end-joining versus homologous recombination for break repair?
Hi John, I'm not a specialist but I always thouth that based on E. coli experience the NHEJ is very weak in procaryotes and possibly in archea because of circular DNA and RecBCD enzyme complex that degrade linear DNAs. But prokaryotes have site-directed recombination systems in cell these are transposons and dimer esolution system Xer. Bacteriophages should have NHEJ or something alike probably.
Deinoccocus radiodurans may be good for you since it joins with high efficiency DSB resulted from high dose of ionizing radiation (see paper by Miroslav Radman).
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