The effectiveness of radiotherapy treatment could be significantly improved if tumour cells could be rendered more sensitive to ionizing radiation without altering the sensitivity of normal tissues. However many of the key, therapeutically exploitable mechanisms that determine intrinsic tumour radiosensitivity are largely unknown. We have conducted a siRNA screen of 200 genes involved in DNA damage repair aimed at identifying genes whose knockdown increased tumour radiosensitivity. Parallel siRNA screens were conducted in irradiated and unirradiated tumour cells (SQ20B) and irradiated normal tissue cells (MRC5). Using γH2AX foci at 24 hours after ionising radiation we identified several genes such as BRCA2, Lig IV and XRCC5, whose knockdown is known to cause increased cell radiosensitivity thereby validating the primary screening endpoint. In addition we identified POLQ (DNA polymerase theta) as a potential tumour-specific target. Subsequent investigations demonstrated that POLQ knockdown resulted in radiosensitisation of a panel of tumour cell lines from different primary sites, whilst having little or no effect on normal tissue cell lines. These findings raise the possibility that POLQ inhibition might be used clinically to cause tumour specific radiosensitisation.

Both the ERCC1-XPF complex and the proteins involved in homoIogous recombination (HR) have critical roles in inter-strand cross-link (ICL) repair. Here, we report that mitomycin C-induced lesions inhibit replication fork elongation. Furthermore, mitomycin C-induced DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) are the result of the collapse of ICL-stalled replication forks. These are not formed through replication run off, as we show that mitomycin C or cisplatin-induced DNA lesions are not incised by global genome nucleotide excision repair (GGR). We also suggest that ICL-lesion repair is initiated either by replication or transcription, as the GGR does not incise ICL-lesions. Furthermore, we report that RAD51 foci are induced by cisplatin or mitomycin C independently of ERCC1, but that mitomycin C-induced HR measured in a reporter construct is impaired in ERCC1-defective cells. These data suggest that ERCC1–XPF plays a role in completion of HR in ICL repair. We also find no additional sensitivity to cisplatin by siRNA co-depletion of XRCC3 and ERCC1, showing that the two proteins act on the same pathway to promote survival.