What are the Mechanisms of Repair for Chromosome Breakage?
Cells have evolved several mechanisms to repair broken chromosomes:
1. Homologous Recombination (HR): This error-free repair mechanism uses a sister chromatid as a template to accurately repair double-strand breaks. 2. Non-Homologous End Joining (NHEJ): This process directly ligates the broken ends together and is more error-prone than HR. 3. Microhomology-Mediated End Joining (MMEJ): This alternative pathway uses short homologous sequences near the break to join the ends, often resulting in small deletions.
