Bloom's syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive genetic disorder characterized by chromosomal aberrations, genetic instability, and cancer predisposition, all of which may be the result of abnormal signal transduction during DNA damage recognition. Here, we show that BLM is an intermediate responder to stalled DNA replication forks. BLM colocalized and physically interacted with the DNA damage r...

Viruses can interact with host cell molecules responsible for the recognition and repair of DNA lesions, resulting in dysfunctional DNA damage response (DDR). Cells with inefficient DDR are more vulnerable to therapeutic approaches that target DDR, thereby raising DNA damage to a threshold that triggers apoptosis. Here, we demonstrate that 2 Jurkat-derived cell lines with incorporated silent HI...

Histone H2AX is a histone H2A variant that is ubiquitously expressed throughout the genome. It plays a key role in the cellular response to DNA damage and has been designated as the histone guardian of the genome. Histone H2AX deficiency decreases genomic stability and increases tumor susceptibility of normal cells and tissues. However, the role of histone H2AX phosphorylation in malignant tran...

The presence of phosphorylated histone H2AX (γ-H2AX) is associated with the local activation of DNA-damage repair pathways. Although γ-H2AX deregulation in cancer has previously been reported, the molecular mechanism involved and its relationship with other histone modifications remain largely unknown. Here we find that the histone methyltransferase SUV39H2 methylates histone H2AX on lysine 134...

Histone H2AX is a histone H2A variant that is ubiquitously expressed throughout the genome. It plays a key role in the cellular response to DNA damage and has been designated as the histone guardian of the genome. Histone H2AX deficiency decreases genomic stability and increases tumor susceptibility of normal cells and tissues. However, the role of histone H2AX phosphorylation in malignant tran...

p53 mutant tumour cells respond to genotoxic insults by bypassing G1 arrest and halting in G2. Following release from G2 arrest they undergo mitotic catastrophe, whereby mitotic cycling is suppressed, delayed apoptosis begins and endopolyploid cells are produced. The ability of these endopolyploid cells to participate in the restitution process is controversial. To facilitate recovery, these en...

DNA methyltransferase inhibitors (DNMTi) and histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) are under investigation for the treatment of cancer, including the plasma cell malignancy multiple myeloma (MM). Evidence exists that DNA damage and repair contribute to the cytotoxicity mediated by the DNMTi decitabine. Here, we investigated the DNA damage response (DDR) induced by decitabine in MM using 4 huma...

Human tumors and cultured cells contain elevated levels of endogenous DNA damage resulting from telomere dysfunction, replication and transcription errors, reactive oxygen species, and genome instability. However, the contribution of telomere-associated versus telomere-independent endogenous DNA lesions to this damage has never been examined. In this study, we characterized the relative amounts...