Damage sensor role of UV-DDB during base excision repair

UV-DDB, a key protein in human global nucleotide excision repair (NER), binds avidly to abasic sites and 8-oxo-guanine (8-oxoG), suggesting a non-canonical role in base excision repair (BER). We investigated whether UV-DDB can stimulate BER for these two common forms of DNA damage, 8-oxoG and abasic sites, which are repaired by 8-oxoguanine glycosylase (OGG1) and apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease (APE1), respectively. UV-DDB increased both OGG1 and APE1 strand cleavage and stimulated subsequent DNA polymerase β gap-filling activity by 30-fold. Single molecule real-time imaging revealed that UV-DDB forms transient complexes with OGG1 or APE1, facilitating their dissociation from DNA. Furthermore, UV-DDB moved to sites of 8-oxoG repair in cells and UV-DDB depletion sensitized cells to oxidative DNA damage. We propose that UV-DDB is a general sensor of DNA damage in both NER and BER pathways, facilitating damage recognition in the context of chromatin.