Abstrakt

PARP-1, from Dissipater to Kingmaker: Selective Induction of Conditional Synthetic Lethality in Cancer cells and the Development of Treatments based on Pharmacological Interference with DNA Repair Machinery

Jozefa Wesierska-Gadek and Marcin Serocki

Malfunctions of the control mechanisms responsible for detecting and/or repairing mutated genes promote transformation and cancer development. To make a virtue of necessity, cancer-related defects in DNA repair processes have become specific targets of novel treatments for certain cancers based on Theodosius Dobzhansky’s concept of hybrid lethality whereby mutations in two genes are harmless when they occur singularly but lethal when they occur together. This concept originating from experimental biology is currently being exploited in clinical oncology.