Replication fork stalling occurs when the replisome encounters a barrier to normal fork progression. Replisome stalling events are common during scheduled DNA synthesis, but vary in their severity. At one extreme, a lesion may induce only temporary pausing of a DNA polymerase; at the other, it may present a near-absolute barrier to the replicative helicase and effectively block fork progression. Many alternative pathways have evolved to respond to these different types of replication stress. Among these, the homologous recombination (HR) pathway plays an important role, protecting the stalled fork and processing it for repair. Here, we review recent advances in our understanding of how blocked replication forks in vertebrate cells can be processed for recombination and for replication restart.

当复制体遇到正常叉进程的障碍时，复制叉停滞。复制体停滞事件在预定的 DNA 合成过程中很常见，但其严重程度各不相同。在一种极端情况下，损伤可能只会导致 DNA 聚合酶暂时停止；另一方面，它可能对复制解旋酶形成近乎绝对的屏障，并有效地阻止分叉进程。许多替代途径已经进化以应对这些不同类型的复制压力。其中，同源重组 (HR) 通路起着重要作用，保护停滞的叉子并对其进行处理以进行修复。在这里，我们回顾了我们对如何处理脊椎动物细胞中受阻的复制叉以进行重组和复制重启的理解的最新进展。