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MINI REVIEW article
Front. Neurosci.
Sec. Neurodevelopment
Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1552790
This article is part of the Research Topic Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Cancer - Similarities and Differentiating Factors View all 5 articles
How do neurons live long and healthy?: The mechanism of neuronal genome integrity
Provisionally accepted- Shiga University of Medical Science, Otsu, Japan
Genome DNA of neurons in the brain is unstable, and mutations caused by inaccurate repair can lead to neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. Damage to the neuronal genome is induced both exogenously and endogenously. Rapid cell proliferation of neural stem cells during embryonic brain development can lead to errors in genome duplication. Electrical excitations and drastic changes in gene expression in functional neurons cause risks of damaging genomic DNA. The precise repair of DNA damages caused by events making genomic DNA unstable maintains neuronal functions. The maintenance of the DNA sequence and structure of the genome is known as genomic integrity. Molecular mechanisms that maintain genomic integrity are critical for healthy neuronal function. In this review, we describe recent progress in understanding the genome integrity in functional neurons referring to their disruptions reported in neurological diseases.
Keywords: Genome integrity, R-loop, G-quadruplex, DNA Repair, Topoisomerase
Received: 29 Dec 2024; Accepted: 17 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ihara, Rasli and Katsuyama. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yu Katsuyama, Shiga University of Medical Science, Otsu, Japan
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