Abstract: DNA damage can be induced by environmental toxicants and also endogenous sources such as reactive oxygen species or errors during DNA replication and metabolism. If these damage are not repaired, it will cause genome instability thus leading to cancer, aging, immune dysfunction, and neurodegenerative diseases. There are mainly four DNA repair pathways for those DNA damage, including DNA double strand break repair, nucleotide excision repair, base excision repair and mismatch repair. All the repairs must be processed within the context of chromatin. Growing evidence show that nucleosome organization and chromatin structure surrounding the damage sites regulate the DNA repair machinery to access and repair the DNA damage. This article presents most recent highlights of chromatin remodeling in DNA repairs. 

Key words: DNA damage, DNA repair, genome instability, chromatin remodeling