Characterization of the N- terminal domain of Mre11 protein from rice (OsMre11) Oryza sativa.

Chromosomal breaks occur in the genome of all living organisms upon exposure to ionizing radiation, xenobiotics and as intermediates during normal cell cycle progression. Most of the information on DNA repair process has emerged from bacteria, human, mice, and yeast while information on plant DNA repair genes and proteins is limited. Among other DNA repair proteins, MRE11 forms the core of the MRN (Mre11-Rad50-Nbs1) complex and is the first responder to double strand breaks (DSBs), promotes repair either by Non-Homologous End Joining (NHEJ) or Homologous Recombination (HR).

Translin: A multifunctional protein involved in nucleic acid metabolism.

Translin, a highly conserved, DNA/RNA binding protein, is abundantly expressed in brain, testis and in certain malignancies. It was discovered initially in the quest to find proteins that bind to alternating polypurines-polypyrimidines repeats. It has been implicated to have a role in RNA metabolism (tRNA processing, RNAi, RNA transport, etc.

Role of amino acid residues important for nucleic acid binding in human Translin.

Translin is a multifunctional DNA/RNA binding protein involved in DNA repair and RNA metabolism. It has two basic regions and involvement of some residues in these regions in nucleic acid binding is established experimentally. Here we report the functional role of four residues of basic region II, Y85, R86, H88, R92 and one residue of C terminal region, K193 in nucleic acid binding using substitution mutant variants.