It is a budding yeast homolog of the mammalian Mre11-Rad50-Nbs1 (MRN) DNA damage repair complex.
Cells are able to accurately repair DNA double-strand breaks using a process called homologous recombination.
Next the Rad51 protein binds to these tails and initiates a process of strand invasion leading to recovery of genetic information from the undamaged homologous sequence of the second DNA molecule.
Studies with the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have shown that end resection is catalyzed by the MRX protein complex.
[1][2] The MRE11 enzyme (one of the three component proteins of the MRX complex) first makes a nick in the DNA at 15 to 20 nucleotides from the 5’ end of the break.