Deoxyribonucleic acid repair in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The relative ease with which genetic and molecular manipulations can be carried out in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae makes this organism extremely attractive as a model for investigating the molecular biology of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) repair in eucaryotic cells. Genetic analyses indicate that a suprisingly large number of gene functions are involved in cellular responses to genomic result. These genes have been organized into three largely nonoverlapping epistasis groups which probably reflect fundamentally discrete cellular responses to DNA damage. These include excision repair, recombinational repair, and repair associated with increased levels of mutagenesis. In recent years genes from each of the three epistasis groups have been isolated by molecular cloning, and their detailed characterization, sequencing, and overexpression have provided new insights into the molecular biology and biochemistry of various DNA repair modes in yeasts. This review traces the development of our current understanding of the complex genetics and cellular biology of DNA repair in S. cerevisiae and explores in detail the information obtained thus far from the study of isolated genes and the proteins they express.