Bacteria shed light on new drug targets for inherited cancers

Scientists have succeeded in purifying a protein found in bacteria that could reveal new drug targets for inherited breast and ovarian cancers as well as other cancers linked to DNA repair faults. The study is published . The team, based at The University of Manchester's Paterson Institute for Cancer Research and the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre, are the first to decipher the structure of a protein called PARG - which plays an important role in DNA repair and acts in the same pathway as PARP. PARP inhibitors have been showing great promise in clinical trials for patients with breast, ovarian and prostate cancers caused by mutations in genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2. They work by blocking the action of PARP - a protein that chemically tags areas of DNA damage to highlight them to the cell's DNA repair machinery. PARG removes these chemical tags after the DNA damage has been repaired. So the researchers believe that, similar to PARP inhibitors, drugs designed to block the action of PARG could be effective in treating cancer.