Dogma-challenging telomere findings may offer new insights for cancer treatments
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A new study led by University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Hillman Cancer Center researchers shows that an enzyme called PARP1 is involved in repair of telomeres, the lengths of DNA that protect the tips of chromosomes, and that impairing this process can lead to telomere shortening and genomic instability that can cause cancer.
PARP1's job is genome surveillance: When it senses breaks or lesions in DNA, it adds a molecule called ADP-ribose to specific proteins, which act as a beacon to recruit other proteins that repair the break. The new findings, published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, are the first evidence that PARP1 also acts on telomeric DNA, opening up new avenues for understanding and improving PARP1-inhibiting cancer therapies.
"No one thought that ADP-ribosylation at DNA was possible, but recent findings challenge this dogma," said Roderick O'Sullivan, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular pharmacology Pitt and investigator at UPMC Hillman. "PARP1 is one of the most important biomedical targets for cancer research, but it was thought that drugs targeting this enzyme only acted at proteins. Now that we know PARP1 also modifies DNA, it changes the game because we can potentially target this aspect of PARP1 biology to improve cancer treatments."
