Cancer Suppression
HDR is important for suppressing the formation of cancer. HDR maintains the genomic stability by repairing the broken DNA strand, assumed error free because of the use of a template. When a double strand DNA lesion is repaired by NHEJ there is no validating DNA template present which may result in a non-original DNA strand formation with loss of information. A different nucleotide sequence in the DNA strand results in a different protein expressed in the cell. This protein may malfunction by which processes in the cell may fail. When, for example, a receptor of the cell that can receive a signal to stop dividing malfunctions, the cell ignores the signal and keeps dividing and can form a cancer. An example for the essence of HDR is the fact that the mechanism is conserved throughout evolution. The HDR mechanism has also been found in more simple organisms, like in yeast.
Read more about this topic: Homology Directed Repair
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