Involvement of the cell cycle inhibitor p21CDKN1A in DNA repair.

A variety of chemical and physical agents may induce the formation of different lesions in the DNA molecule. These types of DNA damage may be genotoxic to the cells, and must be removed in order to avoid genomic instability, and to prevent cancer formation. To this end, virtually every organism has developed highly conserved genome surveillance and signaling mechanisms, collectively known as the DNA damage response. This pathway consists of DNA damage signaling cascade (cell cycle checkpoints), and of DNA repair processes able to recognize and remove a great number of DNA lesions.