Role of Rad18 in genome stability

Rad18 is an E3 ubiquitin ligase well-known for its function in DNA damage tolerance (DDT). Especially, its role in translesion DNA synthesis, one of two DDT branches, was extensively studied in the past. Recently, Rad18 was shown to be involved in the repair of DNA double- strand breaks (DSBs) in mammalian cells. The role of Rad18 in human cells seems to be important since DSB repair as well as DDT pathway are essential for maintenance of genome stability. In this work, I introduce the function of Rad18 in both DDT pathways, translesion DNA synthesis (TLS) and template switching (TS). Then I summarize current knowledge about the role of human Rad18 in DSB repair. Finally, I describe potential involvement of Rad18 dysregulation in human cancer, since loss of genome integrity is an important driving force for tumorigenesis. Keywords: Rad18, genome stability, DNA double-strand break repair, tumorigenesis, DNA damage tolerance, translesion DNA synthesis, template switching