IIGB Chemists Assess DNA Damage
IIGB researcher Yinsheng Wang and other chemists have now developed a test in the lab to examine how DNA damage caused by anticancer drugs and environmental chemicals ultimately impedes protein synthesis.
Transcription is a cellular process by which genetic information from DNA is copied to messenger RNA for protein production. But anticancer drugs and environmental chemicals can sometimes interrupt this flow of genetic information by causing modifications in DNA.
The chemists report that the method, called “competitive transcription and adduct bypass” or CTAB, can help explain how DNA damage arising from environmental chemicals leads to cancer development.
Wang explained that the CTAB method can be used also to examine various proteins involved in the repair of DNA. One of his research group’s goals is to understand how DNA damage is repaired — knowledge that could result in the development of new and more effective drugs for cancer treatment. The Wang lab has a long-standing interest in understanding the biological and human health consequences of DNA damage.
Wang was joined in the research by UC Riverside’s Changjun You (a postdoctoral scholar and the research paper’s first author), Xiaoxia Dai, Bifeng Yuan, Jin Wang and Jianshuang Wang; Philip J. Brooks of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Md.; and Laura J. Niedernhofer of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Penn.
Study results appeared online in Nature Chemical Biology on Aug. 19, 2012.
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