Pif1 Family Helicases
Pif1 helicases belong to an evolutionarily conserved enzyme family found from bacteria to humans. They have been best studied in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, but their functions have also been investigated in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, trypanosomes, mice, and humans. In these organisms, the Pif1 helicases are multifunctional, usually working to ensure the integrity of both the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes via their various functions in Okazaki fragment maturation, double-strand break (DSB) repair, replication fork barrier maintenance, and maintaining G-quadruplex (G4) DNA stability.

