Neuronal enhancers get a break

Abstract

Emerging evidence shows that neuronal DNA is continuously broken and repaired in a non-random fashion within the genome. Two recent studies, Wu etal. (2021) and Reid etal. (2021), use sequencing of newly synthesized DNA in post-mitotic neurons to map hotspots of DNA repair across the genome. Wu etal. (2021) further show that the repair sites are associated with single-stranded DNA breaks that predominantly occur on neuronal enhancers at sites of CpG methylation.