Maintenance of bacterial genome stability

Maintenance of genome stability largely relies on faithful DNA replication. However, the continuous damage of the genomes by genotoxic agents has rendered necessary the emergence of repair mechanisms to prevent the deleterious effects that the permanence of such damages could cause. Our main objective is to get insights on the molecular mechanisms responsible for maintaining genetic information in microorganisms, by functional analysis of purified repair proteins from the bacterium Bacillus subtilis whose vegetative cells and spores have to deal with DNA damage induced by extreme environmental conditions.