Several DNA repair pathways are involved in maintaining genomic integrity. The major ones include:
1. Base Excision Repair (BER): This pathway corrects small, non-helix-distorting base lesions resulting from oxidation, alkylation, or deamination. 2. Nucleotide Excision Repair (NER): NER repairs bulky, helix-distorting lesions such as those caused by UV radiation. 3. Mismatch Repair (MMR): MMR corrects base-pair mismatches that escape proofreading during DNA replication. 4. Homologous Recombination (HR): HR repairs double-strand breaks using a sister chromatid as a template, ensuring high fidelity. 5. Non-Homologous End Joining (NHEJ): NHEJ repairs double-strand breaks without a template, making it more error-prone compared to HR.
