The cytotoxicity of many antineoplastic agents is due to their capacity to damage DNA and there is evidence indicating that DNA repair contributes to the cellular resistance to such agents. DNA strand breaks constitute a significant proportion of the lesions generated by a broad range of genotoxic agents, either directly, or during the course of DNA repair. Strand breaks that are caused by many agents including ionizing radiation, topoisomerase I inhibitors, and DNA repair glycosylases such as NEIL1 and NEIL2, often contain 5'-hydroxyl and/or 3'-phosphate termini. These ends must be converted to 5'-phosphate and 3'-hydroxyl termini in order to allow DNA polymerases and ligases to catalyze repair synthesis and strand rejoining. A key enzyme involved in this end-processing is polynucleotide kinase (PNK), which possesses two enzyme activities, a DNA 5'-kinase activity and a 3'-phosphatase activity. PNK participates in the single-strand break repair pathway and the nonhomologous end joining pathway for double-strand break repair. RNAi-mediated down-regulation of PNK renders cells more sensitive to ionizing radiation and camptothecin, a topoisomerase I inhibitor. Structural analysis of PNK revealed the protein is composed of three domains, the kinase domain at the C-terminus, the phosphatase domain in the centre and a forkhead associated (FHA) domain at the N-terminus. The FHA domain plays a critical role in the binding of PNK to other DNA repair proteins. Thus each PNK domain may be a suitable target for small molecule inhibition to effectively reduce resistance to ionizing radiation and topoisomerase I inhibitors.
KeywordsDNA damage; DNA repair; small molecule inhibitors; polynucleotide kinase; FHA; kinase; phosphatase
Cancer therapy and DNA damage and repairCancer continues to be a major health problem. This year (2007) it is estimated that approximately 1.6 million individuals will be diagnosed with cancer in the USA and Canada (excluding basal and squamous cell skin cancer) and that approximately 630,000 will die from cancer (American Cancer Society and Canadian Cancer Society). Despite major advances in targeted chemotherapy, the major forms of therapy continue to be surgery, radiotherapy and conventional chemotherapy. The cellular target for radiotherapy and many conventional drugs Corresponding authors: Michael Weinfeld, Experimental Oncology, Cross Cancer Institute, 11560 University Ave, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1Z2, Canada, michaelw@cancerboard.ab.ca, Tel: (780) 432 8438, Mark Glover, Department of Biochemistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2H7, Canada, mark.glover@ualberta.ca, Tel: (780) 492-2136.
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Author ManuscriptAnticancer Agents Med Chem. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 October 22.
Published in final edited form as:Anticancer Agents Med Chem. 2008 May ; 8(4): 358-367.
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NIH-PA Author Manuscriptis the DNA within the nuclei (and possibly mitochondria). Consequently, the levels of induced DNA damage and t...