How a shape-shifting DNA-repair machine fights cancer

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

3-Feb-2014

Contact: Dan Krotz dakrotz@lbl.gov 510-484-5956 DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Maybe you've seen the movies or played with toy Transformers, those shape-shifting machines that morph in response to whatever challenge they face. It turns out that DNA-repair machines in your cells use a similar approach to fight cancer and other diseases, according to research led by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

As reported in a pair of new studies, the scientists gained new insights into how a protein complex called Mre11-Rad50 reshapes itself to take on different DNA-repair tasks.

Their research sheds light on how this molecular restructuring leads to different outcomes in a cell. It could also guide the development of better cancer-fighting therapies and more effective gene therapies.

re11-Rad50's job is the same in your cells, your pet's cells, or any organism's. It detects and helps fix the gravest kind of DNA breaks in which both strands of a DNA double helix are cut. The protein complex binds to the broken DNA ends, sends out a signal that stops the cell from dividing, and uses its shape-shifting ability to choose which DNA repair process is launched to fix the broken DNA. If unrepaired, double strand breaks are lethal to the cell. In addition, a repair job gone wrong can lead to the proliferation of cancer cells.

Little is known about how the protein's Transformer-like capabilities relate to its DNA-repair functions, however.

To learn more, the scientists modified the protein complex in ways that were designed to affect just one of the many activities it undertakes. They then used structural biology, biochemistry, and genomic tools to study the impacts of these modifications.

"By targeting a single activity, we can make the protein complex go down a different pathway and learn how its dynamic structure changes," says John Tainer of Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division. He conducted the research with fellow Berkeley Lab scientist Gareth Williams and scientists from several other institutions.

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How a shape-shifting DNA-repair machine fights cancer