DNA interstrand crosslinks (ICLs) are among the most toxic types of damage to a cell. For this reason, many ICL-inducing agents are effective therapeutic agents. For example, cisplatin and nitrogen mustards are used for treating cancer and psoralen plus UVA (PUVA) is useful for treating psoriasis. However, repair mechanisms for ICLs in the human genome are not clearly defined. Previously, we ha...

MutLα, a heterodimer consisting of MLH1 and PMS2, is key player in the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) system great importance to correct incorporation errors that occur during replication. Previously, we identified posttranslational phosphorylation at amino acid position serine 477 can switch off MMR activity vitro. We also found mutation prevented phosphorylation. Since involved numerous MMR-indepe...

We have found previously that ascorbic acid (vitamin C), as well as acting as a radical scavenger, may modulate the expression of several genes [i.e. fra-1, glutathione S-transferase Pi (GSTpi) and Mut L homologue-1 (MLH1)] in human keratinocytes. In the present paper, we demonstrate that MLH1, as well as its downstream target p73, can be positively modulated by this antioxidant vitamin, indeed...

Biallelic promoter methylation and transcriptional silencing of the MLH1 gene occurs in the majority of sporadic colorectal cancers exhibiting microsatellite instability due to defective DNA mismatch repair. Long-range epigenetic silencing of contiguous genes has been found on chromosome 2q14 in colorectal cancer. We hypothesized that epigenetic silencing of MLH1 could occur on a regional scale...

Mismatch repair proteins participate in antibody class switch recombination, although their roles are unknown. Previous nucleotide sequence analyses of switch recombination junctions indicated that the roles of Msh2 and the MutL homologues, Mlh1 and Pms2, differ. We now asked if Msh2 and Mlh1 function in the same pathway during switch recombination. Splenic B cells from mice deficient in both t...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Lynch syndrome is caused by germ-line mismatch repair gene mutations. We examined the phenotypic differences between MLH1 and MSH2 gene mutation carriers and whether mutation type (point versus large rearrangement) affected phenotypic expression. METHODS This is a cross-sectional prevalence study of 1,914 unrelated probands undergoing clinical genetic testing for MLH1 and ...

MutLalpha, a heterodimer of MLH1 and PMS2, plays a central role in human DNA mismatch repair. It interacts ATP-dependently with the mismatch detector MutSalpha and assembles and controls further repair enzymes. We tested if the interaction of MutLalpha with DNA-bound MutSalpha is impaired by cancer-associated mutations in MLH1, and identified one mutation (Ala128Pro) which abolished interaction...

Lynch syndrome is a hereditary cancer syndrome caused by a constitutional mutation in one of the mismatch repair genes. The implementation of predictive testing and targeted preventative surveillance is hindered by the frequent finding of sequence variants of uncertain significance in these genes. We aimed to determine the pathogenicity of previously reported variants (c.-28A>G and c.-7C>T) wit...

PURPOSE Lynch syndrome is caused by a germline mutation in a mismatch repair gene, most commonly the MLH1 gene. However, one third of the identified alterations are missense variants with unclear clinical significance. The functionality of these variants can be tested in the laboratory, but the results cannot be used for clinical diagnosis. We therefore aimed to establish a laboratory test that...

PURPOSE Patients with colorectal cancers (CRC) and high microsatellite instability (MSI) have a better outcome than their chromosome-unstable counterpart. Given the heterogeneity of microsatellite-unstable CRCs, we wanted to see whether any MSI-associated molecular features are specifically associated with prognosis. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN One hundred and nine MSI-high CRCs were typed for primar...