Understanding the body's natural defence mechanisms enables us to better understand how certain proteins communicate and network to repair damaged DNA. This scaffold then locally concentrates special repair proteins, that are in short supply, and that are critically needed to repair DNA without mistakes. In short, two proteins called 53BP1 and RIF1 engage to build a three-dimensional 'scaffold' around the broken DNA strands. The findings have been published in the scientific journal Nature. Now researchers from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research at the University of Copenhagen have discovered how certain proteins orchestrate repair of damaged DNA to ensure its stability over generations and to prevent collateral damage to the neighbouring unharmed DNA. In turn, this can lead to irreversible genetic damage and ultimately cause diseases such as cancer, immune deficiency, dementia or developmental defects. As a result, DNA strands can be broken at least once during each cell division cycle and this frequency can increase by certain lifestyles, such as smoking, or in individuals who are born with defects in DNA repair. This is not a small task because our DNA is constantly under attack, both from the environment but also from the cell's own metabolic activities. Every day, the body's cells divide millions of times, and the maintenance of their identity requires that a mother cell passes complete genetic information to daughter cells without mistakes.
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