Overcoming the chromatin barrier to end resection.

Repair of double-strand breaks by homologous recombination requires Repair of double-strand breaks by homologous recombination requires 5'-3' resection of the DNA ends to create 3' single-stranded DNA tails. While much progress has been made in identifying the proteins that directly participate in end resection, how this process occurs in the context of chromatin is not well understood. Two papers in Nature report that Fun30, a poorly characterized member of the Swi2/Snf2 family of chromatin remodelers, plays a role in end processing by facilitating the Exo1 and Sgs1-Dna2 resection pathways.