Modeling nucleotide excision repair and its impact on UV-induced mutagenesis during SOS-response in bacterial cells

•A mathematical model of bacterial nucleotide excision repair system is developed.•A whole sequence of UV-induced mutagenesis in repair-deficient cells is modelled.•Error-prone DNA repair is about four times more efficient than error-free repair.•Temporal modulation of SOS-inducing signal is predicted.

A model of the UV-induced mutation process in Escherichia coli bacteria has been developed taking into account the whole sequence of molecular events starting from initial photo-damage and finishing with the fixation of point mutations. The wild-type phenotype bacterial cells are compared with UV-sensitive repair-deficient mutant cells. Attention is mainly paid to excision repair system functioning as regards induced mutagenesis.