RNA repair--the latest addition to the toolbox for macromolecular maintenance.

All organisms must keep their DNA intact and free of lesions to obtain faithful transmission of genetic information, and many cellular proteins are involved in genome maintenance. However, also other macromolecules may be subject to repair. Deleterious lesions in proteins can be reversed by several mechanisms, and this appears to be particularly important in cell types where protein turnover is low. In addition, recent studies indicate that RNA is also repaired. AlkB proteins, which were initially found to repair chemically alkylated DNA, can also remove alkyl lesions from RNA, and, moreover, provide functional reactivation of damaged tRNA and mRNA. Here, recent findings on RNA repair are discussed.