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Science 18 June 2004:
Vol. 304. no. 5678, p. 1713
DOI: 10.1126/science.304.5678.1713m
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This Week in Science
Homologous recombination (HR) is a vital DNA damage-repair pathway. A common intermediate of HR is the Holliday junction complex, a structure that also occurs during meiosis and mitosis. Mus81 is an endonuclease implicated in Holliday junction resolution and/or in the processing of stalled replication forks in yeast. In order to probe the function of Mus81 in mammals, McPherson et al. (p. 1822) generated mice lacking the gene. Surprisingly, the mice are viable and fertile, and demonstrate normal lymphocyte development and activation, ruling out a role for Mus81 in the repair of programmed DNA breaks as well as in meiotic recombination. However, heterozygous and homozygous mice show an elevated incidence of chromosomal aberration and various types of malignancy, revealing that Mus81 is a haploinsufficient tumor suppressor protein.
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)
