Maintenance of genomic integrity is of fundamental importance to all living organisms. Defects in DNA repair are found in human diseases associated with increased cancer frequency. Nucleotide excision repair (NER) is a DNA repair pathway found in all organisms that removes a wide variety of bulky DNA adducts. In eukaryotic cells, DNA is packaged with histones and other accessory proteins into chromatin. Thus DNA repair enzymes must deal with the highly compact and dynamic structure of chromatin. Recently, we have found evidence that the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex plays an important role to facilitate NER.

Several subunits of the human SWI/SNF complex are encoded by tumor suppressor genes. We are currently investigating the mechanisms by which SWI/SNF remodel nucleosomes to facilitate NER. Our laboratory employs mammalian cell culture and budding yeast as model systems to address basic questions concerning the regulation/or modification of chromatin in response to DNA damage.

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