MONTREAL – A constant bombardment of environmental factors including sunlight, pollution and smoking causes damage to the body's genetic material called DNA that can lead to cancer.
Now, according to a new study published in the early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, scientists from the Universite de Montreal and the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Centre have identified a new biochemical pathway which controls DNA repair.
This pathway is defective in about 50 per cent of all cancers, said Elliot Drobetsky, the study's lead author and associate professor of immunology and oncology at the Universite de Montreal.
Drobetsky's team had identified a new function for a protein called ATR, which kicks into action so the body can repair itself.
The ATR protein is key to turning on the repair kit, he said.
"It regulates this very important DNA repair pathway that protects us against many dangerous carcinogens in the environment," he explained.
DNA damage is also due to internal factors, when human cells divide and copy, because the process itself is prone to errors.
The study has implications for cancer treatment, especially in tumours caused by ATR malfunction.
It also has implications for understanding how exposure to environmental carcinogens promote cancers.
© Montreal Gazette 2008
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