Genome-wide excision repair in Arabidopsis is coupled to transcription and reflects circadian gene expression patterns (Nature Comms)

Exposure to ultraviolet radiation and numerous other factors can cause mispairing of the nucleotides in the DNA, compromising genome integrity. Luckily, plants employ excision repair systems to recognize and repair such DNA damage. Oztas et al. examined the dynamics of such a repair system by using excision repair-sequencing method (XR-seq) to identify genome-wide excision repair maps at different time of the day. The authors observed a higher rate of gene repair in the euchromatin compared to silent heterochromatin regions. The dynamic range in repair across the genome overlapped with peak expression of the circadian genes throughout the day, suggesting the prioritization of the repair of the active genes. Whether the enhanced excision repair contributes to better yield and stress tolerance is to be investigated. (Summary by Magdalena Julkowska) Nature Comms. 10.1038/s41467-018-03922-5