Replication and recombination intersect

A bacterial housekeeping function, which requires both recombination and replication enzymes, has been identified that re-establishes inactivated replication forks under normal growth conditions. Some long-tract gene-conversion events initiated by double-strand breaks in yeast and mammalian cells can be attributed to recombination-directed DNA replication. Double-strand break repair in yeast has been shown to require both leading- and lagging-strand DNA synthesis. These observations suggest that the recombination and replication machinery cooperate to maintain genomic integrity.