Recognition of DNA lesions

International audienceThe average human cell suffers from approximately 104–105 DNA lesions per day. If left unrepaired, damaged DNA generates replication errors, mutations and genomic instability that ultimately threaten cell or organism viability and are associated with ageing and a number of human diseases, including cancer . Cells have evolved several elaborate mechanisms to detect and repair DNA lesions. These include homologous recombination (HR), non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ), global and transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair (NER), base excision repair (BER), mismatch repair (MMR) and direct repair (DR) . Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2015 for their pioneering research that led to the discovery and understanding of several of these key repair pathways . For a review of the early years of DNA repair and recent advances that are not covered in this Special Issue, please consult a recent commentary by Phil Hanawalt and Joann Sweasy , as well as other articles published in the 50th Anniversary Special Issue of Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis ..