Does a helicase activity help mismatch repair in eukaryotes?

Mismatch repair (MMR) corrects innate DNA replication infidelities. Many components of eukaryotic MMR have been identified, the molecular mechanism of MMR has been largely demonstrated, and furthermore the nick-directed MMR reactions have been reconstituted with purified human proteins in vitro. However, some fundamental questions still remain to be answered. One such question is whether a DNA helicase activity is required for MMR in eukaryotes. This short review presents an overview of the interactions between eukaryotic DNA helicases and MMR factors, and suggests a possible mechanism for how DNA helicases may be involved in repair of DNA mismatches. (c) 2010 IUBMB IUBMB Life.