TY - JOUR T1 - The <em>Caenorhabditis elegans</em> RAD-51 isoform A is required for the induction of DNA-damage-dependent apoptosis JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/152058 SP - 152058 AU - Marcello Germoglio AU - Adele Adamo Y1 - 2017/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/19/152058.abstract N2 - The rad-51 gene in Caenorhabditis elegans is transcribed into alternative mRNAs potentially coding three alternative protein isoforms. We have genetically modified this gene in order to investigate the potential roles of the longest isoform, namely isoform A, in genome stability. The RAD-51 isoform A appears to contribute to genome stability in late development, but is not implicated in meiosis or DNA repair in the germline. However, the RAD-51 isoform A has a pivotal role in DNA damage induced apoptosis, but not in DNA damage checkpoint activation or physiological cell death. This is a relevant new finding that improves our understanding of how DNA damage apoptosis is restricted to late pachytene stage preventing the inappropriate loss of nuclei undergoing the earlier stages of meiotic recombination, during which a large number of physiologically induced DSBs are present. ER -