Search, verify and excise-lesion recognition in NER

Nucleotide excison repair (NER) is a highly versatile template-based DNA repair mechanism that can address lesions ranging from cyclo butane pyrimdine dimers, to cisplatinum crosslinks, and bulky adducts like acetyl amino flourenes. Eukaryotic NER employs more than thirty different proteins that coordinate and facilitate the search, verification, incision, and DNA re-synthesis of the various lesions with extremely high precision. High resolution structures of key complexes combined with biochemistry and computational biology have greatly enhanced our understanding of the NER process. In this review we will highlight recent discoveries in NER research concerning lesion search and handover of complex assemblies, lesion verification, and potential mechanisms providing the signal for incision with a focus on structural biology.