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DNA ligase is a type of enzyme that facilitates the joining of DNA strands together by catalyzing the formation of a phosphodiester bond.It plays a role in repairing single-strand breaks in duplex DNA in living organisms, but some forms (such as DNA ligase IV) may specifically repair double-strand breaks (i.e. a break in both complementary strands of DNA).
The smallest known eukaryotic ligase is Chlorella virus DNA ligase (ChVLig). It contains only 298 amino acids. When ChVLig is the only source of ligase in the cell, it can continue to support mitotic development, and nonhomologous end joining in budding yeasts. [34] DNA Ligase I (Lig1) is accountable for Okazaki Fragments ligation.
In biochemistry, a ligase is an enzyme that can catalyze the joining of two molecules by forming a new chemical bond.This is typically via hydrolysis of a small pendant chemical group on one of the molecules, typically resulting in the formation of new C-O, C-S, or C-N bonds.
Ligase I has also been found to be upregulated in proliferating tumor cells, as opposed to benign tumor cell lines and normal human cells. Furthermore, it has been shown that inhibiting ligase I expression in these cells can have a cytotoxic effect, suggesting that ligase I inhibitors may be viable chemotherapeutic agents.
Pathway preference may differ between organisms, as well. While human cells utilize both short- and long-patch BER, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was long thought to lack a short-patch pathway because it does not have homologs of several mammalian short-patch proteins, including pol β, DNA ligase III, XRCC1, and the kinase domain of PNKP.
They hypothesized that if discontinuous replication, involving short DNA chains linked together by polynucleotide ligase, is the mechanism used in DNA synthesis, then "newly synthesized short DNA chains would accumulate in the cell under conditions where the function of ligase is temporarily impaired."
[24] [26] Thus, viable cells that lack nuclear DNA ligase III-alpha can be generated. While DNA ligase I is the predominant enzyme that joins Okazaki fragments during DNA replication, it is now evident that the DNA ligase III-alpha/XRCC1 complex enables cells that either lack or have reduced DNA ligase I activity to complete DNA replication.
DNA ligase is an enzyme that joins together ends of DNA molecules. Although commonly represented as joining two pairs of ends at once, as in the ligation of restriction enzyme fragments, ligase can also join the ends on only one of the two strands (for example, when the other strand is already continuous or lacks a terminal phosphate necessary for ligation).