Abstract
The RAG proteins were long thought to serve merely as a nuclease, initiating recombination by cleaving DNA. Recent work has shown, however, that these proteins are essential for many steps in the recombination pathway, such as opening hairpins and joining broken DNA ends, and that they can also act as a transposase, targeting distorted DNA structures such as hairpins.
The VDJ recombinase is turning out to have an unexpectedly large repertoire of functions, including DNA cleavage, hairpin opening, end joining, and transposition. This review highlights these new developments.
