BRIDGE-BUILDING BETWEEN MATHEMATICAL-THEORY AND MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY - THE REV2 GENE AS PARADIGM

The DNA damage-repair theory of R.H. Haynes anticipated the possibilit y of dose-dependent repair processes. The mathematical formalism devel oped by Haynes and coworkers on the basis of this theory provided tool s to probe for the existence of inducible components of mutation or re combination by analysis of dose-response curves. Subsequently, we foun d that biological and molecular analysis of the Saccharomyces cerevisi ae REV2 gene supported the validity of the postulates derived from the mathematical analysis. In this article, we briefly review the foregoi ng and summarize evidence that the REV2 gene product might function in DNA damage-inducible repair and mutation processes.