Review
Nature Reviews Cancer 3, 23-34 (January 2003) | doi:10.1038/nrc970
The Fanconi anaemia/BRCA pathway
See also: Correspondence by Pagano & Rutherford | Correspondence by Grompe & D'Andrea
Alan D. D'Andrea1 & Markus Grompe2 About the authors
Abstract
Fanconi anaemia (FA) is a rare genetic cancer-susceptibility syndrome that is characterized by congenital abnormalities, bone-marrow failure and cellular sensitivity to DNA crosslinking agents. Seven FA-associated genes have recently been cloned, and their products were found to interact with well-known DNA-damage-response proteins, including BRCA1, ATM and NBS1. The FA proteins could therefore be involved in the cell-cycle checkpoint and DNA-repair pathways. Recent studies implicate the FA proteins in the process of repairing chromosome defects that occur during homologous recombination, and disruption of the FA genes results in chromosome instability — a common feature of many human cancers.
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Author affiliations
- Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, 44 Binney Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
- Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, Oregon Health and Sciences University, 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road L103, Portland, Oregon 97239, USA.
Correspondence to: Alan D. D'Andrea1 Email: alan_dandrea@dfci.harvard.edu
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