hSSB2 is a novel single -stranded DNA binding protein implicated in Nucleotide Excision Repair.  — ASN Events
  1. Schedule
  2. Session Ten - Poster Session C
  3. hSSB2 is a novel single -stranded DNA binding protein implicated in Nucleotide Excision Repair. 

hSSB2 is a novel single -stranded DNA binding protein implicated in Nucleotide Excision Repair.  (#332)

Ruvini Fernando 1 , Roland Gamsjaeger 1 , Didier Boucher 2 , Kum Kum Khanna 2 , Liza Cubeddu 1
  1. School of Science and Health, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2560, Australia
  2. Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation at the Translational Research Institute, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland 4102, Australia

Single stranded DNA binding (SSB) proteins play a major role in cellular DNA processing activities such as replication, recombination and repair. These proteins are evolutionary conserved amongst the three domains of life and bind to single stranded DNA (ssDNA) via an oligonucleotide-binding domain. Our recent work has uncovered two new human SSBs (hSSB1 and 2), which are structurally more similar to archaeal SSB than to eukaryotic replication protein A, the only other known SSB from this family. hSSB1 plays an important role in the repair of lethal double stranded DNA breaks. In contrast, hSSB2 is implicated in the Nucleotide Excision Repair (NER) pathway, as our data reveals that it is upregulated following ultra violet (UV) radiation. Using SPR experiments, we show that hSSB2 is not detecting UV damage specifically, but rather detecting ssDNA formed due to a distortion in the duplex. Our data indicate involvement of hSSB2 in the initial stages of NER and a role in binding and protecting ssDNA until subsequent NER components can be recruited to repair the damage.