Role of nuclear actin filaments in DNA repair dynamics
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Genetics
- Keywords
- DSB repair, Heterochromatin, Homologous recombination, nuclear actin filaments, Arp2/3, nuclear myosins, repair focus clustering, directed motions
- Copyright
- © 2019 Caridi et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2019. Role of nuclear actin filaments in DNA repair dynamics. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27855v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27855v1
Abstract
Actin filaments (F-actin) have well-known functions in the cytoplasm, including generating forces for cell movement and enabling myosin-driven dynamics of vesicles and mRNAs. In addition, the recent development of innovative tools for F-actin detection have revealed dynamic and transient filaments in the nuclei, which form in response to specific stimuli. Here we provide an overview of the functions of F-actin and myosins in nuclei, with a focus on their role in DNA repair and genome stability. We emphasize recent discoveries of nuclear F-actin driving the relocalization of heterochromatic repair sites to the nuclear periphery for ‘safe' homologous recombination (HR) repair of double-strand breaks (DSBs). F-actin also promotes repair focus clustering and DSB resection in euchromatin, facilitating HR progression. We highlight regulatory mechanisms specialized for actin polymerization during DNA replication and repair, and emphasize recent studies revealing alternative motors for the directional movement of repair sites. Together, these discoveries challenge previous models that actin is substantially monomeric in the nucleus and that DSBs move via Brownian motion, revealing a complex network of dynamic filaments, motors and regulators, coordinating chromatin dynamics with repair progression.
Author Comment
This review article is submitted to a peer reviewed journal.