Nucleotide excision repair and the ubiquitin proteasome pathway--do all roads lead to Rome?

It is clear that components of the proteasome and the ubiquitin proteasome pathway play a direct mechanistic role in the regulation of a variety of DNA repair processes. Intriguingly, a wealth of evidence suggests that this is also the case during the regulation of gene transcription. Here we review our current understanding of how the ubiquitin proteasome pathway influences nucleotide excision repair, and discuss how studies that investigate the role of this pathway in the regulation of gene transcription might also contribute to our mechanistic understanding of its role in DNA repair.