401Over recent years the investigation of DNA repair pathways is a very attractive area of research. It is well known that cells have a number of overlapping pathways to protect the genome from DNA damage. Mutations that occur within these pathways represent an increased risk of malignant transformation and chemotherapy resistance [1]. Despite much research has focused on protecting cells from DNA damage and restoring their repair function, the concept of "synthetic lethality", that is, exploiting the vulnerability of tumor cells which have lost one DNA repair pathway by targeting a second repair pathway, is emerging and represents an interesting therapeutic approach [2].Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer incidence and the second leading cause of cancer mortality in women. Germline mutations of the breast tumor suppressor genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 have been found to contribute to the most of the familial breast cancer cases [3,4]. Recent evidence suggests that tumor cells which have lost BRCA1 or BRCA2, components essential for DNA repair by homologous recombination (HR), are particularly sensitive to inhibitors of base excision repair pathway (BER) [5]. Poly(ADPribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) is an enzyme which plays an important role in the recognition and repair of single-strand DNA breaks (SSBs) via BER [6]. Thus, targeted therapy using PARP-1 inhibitors has become an important novel strategy for treating tumor cells with deficiency in BRCA1 or BRCA2.BRCA1 and BRCA2. BRCA1 and BRCA2 play important roles in the repair of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) by HR. This error-free pathway is used to repair DSBs that occur in late S/G 2 phase of the cell cycle as well as to repair DSBs resulting from unrepaired SSBs. BRCA1 signals the presence of DSBs, while BRCA2 has a direct role in repair itself by driving RAD51 to the DSB site. Following recognition of DSBs, BRCA1 is phosphorylated and leads to activation of DSB repair by HR [7][8][9]. In the absence of functional BRCA1 or BRCA2, cells become unable to undergo DNA repair by HR and activate the nonhomologous end joining and single-strand non-homologous end joining annealing pathways, which are error-prone and result in chromosomal instability or cell death (Figure 1).
Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1).PARP-1 is the first characterized and the best known member of the PARP family, which currently comprises 18 members [10]. PARP-1 is an abundant nuclear enzyme implicated in cellular responses to DNA injury provoked by genotoxic stress, in transcriptional regulation, and in regulation of cell survival and cell death. It binds to nicked DNA as a homodimer and mediates protection of DNA. Upon binding to DNA breaks, it cleaves NAD + into nicotinamide and ADP-ribose moieties and polymerizes the latter through surface accessible glutamate residues onto nuclear acceptor proteins. When DNA is mildly dam-
Received February 5,2010The nuclear poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) represents an important novel target in cancer therapy. The enzyme is essential for si...