[DNA repair and neurodegeneration].

Early onset ataxia with hypoalbuminemia (AOA1/EAOH) patients begin with ocular motor apraxia and cerebellar ataxia in childhood, and then develop axonal peripheral neuropathy and hypoalbuminemia. We and others identified 'aprataxin (APTX)' as the causative gene for AOA1/EAOH. APTX binds to XRCC1, which is the scaffold protein for BER machinery, and has a HIT-motif, which is supposed to have hydrolase activity on nucleotide. These properties suggest that APTX acts on DNA during single strand DNA break. The 3' -termini of single strand DNA break must be hydroxylated to allow DNA polymerase or ligase to repair; however, ordinary the 3' termini is modified by phosphate or others. These unsuitable ends have to be removed to repair. To investigate whether the APTX works on DNA and remove the unsuitable 3' -end, we incubated recombinant human APTX with variable oligonucleotide. We show that APTX has bidirectional exonuclease activity and 3'-phosphatase activity. These results indicate that APTX might modify the phosphorylated 3' -end in a single strand DNA break. To date several diseases have been identified as caused by an impairment of quality control system of DNA/ RNA. The impairment of quality control system of DNA/RNA is a new pathway for neuronal degeneration.