Appears to contribute to D.radiodurans capacity to survive exposure to ionizing radiation. May play a role in DNA repair and genome reconstitution. Induced to high levels following extreme ionizing radiation exposure. Also highly induced in response to desiccation stress. Cells lacking this gene show a normal growth rate, do not exhibit a decrease in the efficiency of natural transformation, and is as resistant to ionizing radiation as wild-type. However, deletion of the ddrC gene decreases the ionizing radiation resistance of the recA mutant strain, and appears to increase that of the pprA mutant strain. Moreover, cells lacking both ddrC and ddrD exhibit a slight (two-fold) increase in sensitivity to ionizing radiation, but this phenotype is apparent only at the highest applied doses.