X-Ray Repair Cross Complementing 2 (XRCC2)

XRCC2 participates in homologous recombination to maintain chromosome stability and repair DNA damage. This gene is involved in the repair of DNA double-strand breaks by homologous recombination and it functionally complements Chinese hamster irs1, a repair-deficient mutant that exhibits hypersensitivity to a number of different DNA-damaging agents.Hamster cells deficient in XRCC2 showed a more than 100-fold decrease in homologous recombination induced by double-strand breaks compared with the parental cell line. This defect was corrected to almost wildtype levels by transient transfection with a plasmid expressing XRCC2. The repair defect in XRCC2 mutant cells appeared to be restricted to recombinational repair because nonhomologous end joining was normal.