Review
Nature Reviews Cancer 8, 193-204 (March 2008) | doi:10.1038/nrc2342
DNA repair pathways as targets for cancer therapy
Thomas Helleday1,2, Eva Petermann1, Cecilia Lundin1, Ben Hodgson1 & Ricky A. Sharma1 About the authors
Abstract
DNA repair pathways can enable tumour cells to survive DNA damage that is induced by chemotherapeutic treatments; therefore, inhibitors of specific DNA repair pathways might prove efficacious when used in combination with DNA-damaging chemotherapeutic drugs. In addition, alterations in DNA repair pathways that arise during tumour development can make some cancer cells reliant on a reduced set of DNA repair pathways for survival. There is evidence that drugs that inhibit one of these pathways in such tumours could prove useful as single-agent therapies, with the potential advantage that this approach could be selective for tumour cells and have fewer side effects.
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Author affiliations
- Radiation Oncology & Biology, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus Research Building, off Roosevelt Drive, Headington, Oxford, OX3 7DQ, UK.
- Department of Genetics Microbiology and Toxicology, Stockholm University, Svante Arrhenius väg 16, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
Correspondence to: Thomas Helleday1,2 Email: thomas.helleday@rob.ox.ac.uk