Functional defects in the fanconi anemia pathway in pancreatic cancer cells

MS Van der Heijden, JR Brody, E Gallmeier… - The American journal of …, 2004 - Elsevier
MS Van der Heijden, JR Brody, E Gallmeier, SC Cunningham, DA Dezentje, D Shen
The American journal of pathology, 2004Elsevier
Biallelic BRCA2-mutations can cause Fanconi anemia and are found in∼ 7% of pancreatic
cancers. Recently, several sequence changes in FANCC and FANCG were reported in
pancreatic cancer. Functional defects in the Fanconi pathway can result in a marked
hypersensitivity to interstrand crosslinking agents, such as mitomycin C. The functional
implications of mutations in the Fanconi pathway in cancer have not been fully studied yet;
these studies are needed to pave the way for clinical trials of treatment with crosslinking …
Biallelic BRCA2-mutations can cause Fanconi anemia and are found in ∼7% of pancreatic cancers. Recently, several sequence changes in FANCC and FANCG were reported in pancreatic cancer. Functional defects in the Fanconi pathway can result in a marked hypersensitivity to interstrand crosslinking agents, such as mitomycin C. The functional implications of mutations in the Fanconi pathway in cancer have not been fully studied yet; these studies are needed to pave the way for clinical trials of treatment with crosslinking agents of Fanconi-defective cancers. The competence of the proximal Fanconi pathway was screened in 21 pancreatic cancer cell lines by an assay of Fancd2 monoubiquitination using a Fancd2 immunoblot. The pancreatic cancer cell lines Hs766T and PL11 were defective in Fancd2 monoubiquitination. In PL11, this defect led to the identification of a large homozygous deletion in FANCC, the first cancer cell line found to be FANCC-null. The Fanconi-defective cell lines Hs766T, PL11, and CAPAN1 were hypersensitive to the crosslinking agent mitomycin C and some to cis-platin, as measured by cell survival assays and G2/M cell-cycle arrest. These results support the practical exploration of crosslinking agents for non-Fanconi anemia patients that have tumors defective in the Fanconi pathway.
Elsevier