Damage induced in DNA by numerous chemical and physical factors as well as spontaneously formed imperfections in DNA structure pose a threat to all organisms. To counteract this threat, living cells have evolved a series of DNA repair pathways to correct DNA lesions affecting base pairings or the structure of DNA. Today we understand, in a large part, the molecular mechanisms of these pathways in detail due to the pioneering studies by Tomas LIndahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar, which opened up this field of research. Tomas Lindahl discovered the molecular machinery of base excision repair - the main cell defence against endogeneous DNA damage. Aziz Sancar characterised, at the molecular level, details of the mechanisms of nucleotide excision repair - the major repair system of DNA damage caused by environmental factors such as UV-irradiation and various genotoxic chemicals including chemotherapeutic agents. Paul Modrich uncovered a mismatch repair - the way how cells resolve errors which occur during DNA replication. Therefore, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded jointly Lindahl, Modrich, and Sancar the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015 for their "Mechanistic studies of DNA repair". In this paper, we briefly summarise the results of their work., Miroslav Piršel., and Obsahuje seznam literatury