The Role of DNA Repair and Damage in Cancer
July 12, 2021Information
July 11, 2021
Yale Cancer Center
visit: http://www.yalecancercenter.org
email: canceranswers@yale.edu
call: 203-785-4095
ID6783
To CiteDCA Citation Guide
- 00:00Funding for Yale Cancer Answers
- 00:02is provided by Smilow Cancer
- 00:04Hospital and AstraZeneca.
- 00:08Welcome to Yale Cancer Answers with
- 00:10your host doctor Anees Chagpar.
- 00:12Yale Cancer Answers features the
- 00:14latest information on cancer care by
- 00:16welcoming oncologists and specialists
- 00:18who are on the forefront of the
- 00:20battle to fight cancer. This week,
- 00:22it's a conversation about DNA
- 00:24repair with Doctor Megan King.
- 00:26Doctor King is an associate professor
- 00:28of cell biology and of molecular,
- 00:31cellular, and developmental biology
- 00:32at the Yale School of Medicine,
- 00:34where Doctor Chagpar is a
- 00:37professor of surgical oncology.
- 00:39Megan, maybe we can start off with you
- 00:42telling us a little bit about yourself
- 00:45and about your research and how you got
- 00:47involved in this research project to
- 00:50begin with.
- 00:50Yeah, so it's very interesting thinking
- 00:52back to what drew me towards science.
- 00:55I'm from a family of engineers,
- 00:57actually including both of my parents,
- 00:59but I always gravitated towards science,
- 01:02and in particular as a high school student,
- 01:04I took anatomy and Physiology,
- 01:06and it was actually the
- 01:08section of my textbook
- 01:09on cancer that really provided for me,
- 01:12I think the first kind of window into
- 01:14how a scientist could have a positive
- 01:17impact on human health in a way that was
- 01:20different from becoming a medical doctor,
- 01:22which I think all of us are a
- 01:25little bit more familiar with,
- 01:27certainly as children.
- 01:28And so I've been reflecting on
- 01:30that recently because it's been a
- 01:32bit of a circuitous route that's
- 01:34brought me back to Cancer Research.
- 01:36I really trended towards very
- 01:38fundamental kind of basic science.
- 01:40Questions for my initial training
- 01:42as an undergraduate and graduate
- 01:44student and even into my
- 01:47postdoc period where one typically
- 01:49is defining the kind of areas of
- 01:51research that they will pursue,
- 01:53and in their independent laboratory.
- 01:55But I discovered a connection between
- 01:57the cell biology of the nucleus,
- 02:00which is something that I had
- 02:02been training with
- 02:04Gunter Blobel at Rockefeller
- 02:06University in Genome Integrity,
- 02:07so that is the mechanisms that
- 02:10maintain the DNA blueprint
- 02:12as it should be and that was
- 02:14really just something that I had
- 02:16not focused on before
- 02:18but it really changed the direction of
- 02:21my research and I became very interested
- 02:24in how aspects of how a cell works,
- 02:26are able to contribute to the mechanisms
- 02:29that maintain that genetic code.
- 02:31So tell us more about
- 02:33that. I think some of us can
- 02:35remember back to junior high biology
- 02:38where we kind of know what a cell is.
- 02:41And we know what a nucleus is and
- 02:44housed within that nucleus is the
- 02:46DNA which is responsible for that
- 02:48genetic blueprint as you say.
- 02:50So tell us more about the connection
- 02:52that you found between how a cell
- 02:55functions and genomic integrity.
- 02:56Yeah, so I was
- 02:58also fascinated with this
- 03:00idea of the the nucleus which
- 03:02is the organelle that houses the DNA,
- 03:05being kind of the brain.
- 03:07Having all of the kind of
- 03:09control and that plan
- 03:11for the cell, but I think one of the
- 03:14things that maybe isn't always captured
- 03:16when we kind of make that diorama during
- 03:19you know grade school is that actually
- 03:22it's not just a big ball of yarn,
- 03:25but actually the DNA has lots of different
- 03:28regions and these regions are important
- 03:30for different aspects of that blueprint.
- 03:33And they're not all created equal.
- 03:36There are specific regions of the DNA
- 03:39that are far more prone to damage.
- 03:42And there are also mechanisms to repair
- 03:44that damage that may be quite specific,
- 03:46so if you have a leak
- 03:49in a pipe you may need a plumber, right?
- 03:52But if you're siding
- 03:54has gone downhill,
- 03:55maybe you need someone who is
- 03:57more like a Carpenter.
- 03:59Or for any
- 04:00new paint you're going
- 04:02to have a different kind of approach
- 04:04depending on what the issue is.
- 04:06And it turns out for cells,
- 04:08that's similar.
- 04:09There are actually different
- 04:10DNA repair mechanisms and you
- 04:12really need to use the right mechanism
- 04:14for the right kind of damage,
- 04:17and it turns out that much of that is
- 04:19actually dictated by these different
- 04:21flavors of the regions of DNA and
- 04:24also physically where those different
- 04:26regions of the DNA blueprint are
- 04:29organized inside the nucleus,
- 04:30because it's a much more
- 04:33compartmentalized kind of network
- 04:37than when we just again think of
- 04:40this string that has all of that
- 04:43coding material,
- 04:43so it's not
- 04:44just where the break occurs in the
- 04:47DNA or what kind of a break it is,
- 04:50whether it's a single strand
- 04:52break or a double strand break,
- 04:54but where exactly it's
- 04:56located within the nucleus.
- 04:58We think about two components.
- 05:00One exactly as you say physically,
- 05:03where is that DNA break in the nucleus?
- 05:06And then there's also the
- 05:07other attributes of the DNA.
- 05:09So DNA doesn't live on its own.
- 05:13It's actually wrapped up and packaged
- 05:15around proteins that are called
- 05:17histones and this packaging is
- 05:19really important for whether a
- 05:22particular gene may be expressed or not.
- 05:24It turns out that a DNA break
- 05:27in a region of the genome
- 05:29that is coding for a protein,
- 05:31so it's going to be transcribed
- 05:33into the messenger RNA and then
- 05:36translated into a protein.
- 05:37Those regions of the genome are
- 05:39a bit different than regions of
- 05:41the genome that may be silent,
- 05:43and so that also just leads to both some
- 05:46challenges for DNA repair mechanisms
- 05:48and also some activities that
- 05:51may actually make it more prone to
- 05:53the accumulation of DNA damage.
- 05:55And so we think of both
- 05:57where the break is
- 05:59physically,
- 06:00and also where it is in context
- 06:02of what else is happening in
- 06:04that region of the DNA.
- 06:06So we know that DNA can incur various
- 06:09forms of damage that can be in coding
- 06:12regions or in non coding regions.
- 06:15How does that then evolve into
- 06:17your research with cancer?
- 06:19So initially as I mentioned our
- 06:21interest was the idea that these
- 06:24different locations in the nucleus
- 06:26might be important for making sure that
- 06:29those breaks are repaired by the right
- 06:31process and in order to study that we
- 06:35really need to be able to watch DNA
- 06:38repair in a cell that's living while
- 06:40it's happening and that as it turns out
- 06:42is actually quite a difficult problem,
- 06:45and so over the past ten years or so,
- 06:48one of the things that my group has
- 06:50invested in, is building so called
- 06:52assays where we can actually watch
- 06:55a single DNA break,
- 06:56which we actually control.
- 06:58So we induce the break to occur in
- 07:00exactly the place where we want it to,
- 07:03and then we actually follow the
- 07:05repair of that break in real time and
- 07:08once we built this system,
- 07:10we became very interested in how we might
- 07:13leverage it to answer some important
- 07:15questions that were really arising
- 07:17in the field of cancer treatments.
- 07:19And really,
- 07:20I was driven towards those questions
- 07:22through my interactions with my
- 07:24fantastic colleagues here
- 07:26at the School of Medicine and at
- 07:29Yale Cancer Center who really brought
- 07:33a way of connecting the kind of questions
- 07:36that I had become interested in,
- 07:38again as a postdoc and kind of just
- 07:41looking through the microscope
- 07:42to where we had a real need to
- 07:45understand specific questions in
- 07:46the field of DNA repair,
- 07:49and particularly those that were
- 07:50relevant to the kind of therapies
- 07:53that might be used in the context
- 07:55where patients have
- 07:56defects in DNA repair within their tumors.
- 07:59So first question,
- 08:00how exactly do you watch DNA being
- 08:03repaired in real time?
- 08:05I'm kind of blown away by that concept.
- 08:09I remember back in junior high
- 08:11biology looking down a microscope at
- 08:13a cell and looking at the nucleus.
- 08:16And sometimes you could even see DNA
- 08:19separating into mitotic figures and so on.
- 08:22But to actually see DNA being repaired?
- 08:24I mean presumably that occurs at a base pair
- 08:28level and that's just fascinating to me.
- 08:31So how exactly do you do that
- 08:33and what kind of magnification
- 08:35would you need even to see that?
- 08:38Yeah, that's a great question and honestly,
- 08:40this is why I'm a cell biologist at the end
- 08:43of the day because we love to just look.
- 08:46If we have a way we can look at
- 08:48something happening in real time that
- 08:50is always the best thing in the world.
- 08:53However, as you say,
- 08:54it's not easy and so our work is built
- 08:56on really critical discoveries that
- 08:58have driven cell biology, in particular,
- 09:00and I'll just tell you about two
- 09:02of those that are critical for
- 09:04the assays that we've built.
- 09:05The first is the advent of
- 09:07these fluorescent proteins.
- 09:08Green fluorescent proteins
- 09:09and red fluorescent proteins.
- 09:11Now we have an entire rainbow
- 09:13of these fluorescent proteins,
- 09:14and so these are proteins that
- 09:16fold up and they're able to make
- 09:19what's called a chromophore
- 09:20and we can actually follow that
- 09:22specific molecule in a microscope.
- 09:24And what we do is we basically stitch
- 09:27that fluorescent protein onto a
- 09:29protein that we're interested in,
- 09:30and now we can follow our favorite
- 09:33protein of interest in a live
- 09:35cell on a fluorescence microscope
- 09:36that can specifically detect
- 09:38that fluorescent protein,
- 09:39and so that's one technology
- 09:41that's absolutely critical.
- 09:43The other,
- 09:43and I think this really speaks to
- 09:46the importance of kind of basic
- 09:48science discoveries and what
- 09:50really has impacts on human
- 09:52health these days is that we use
- 09:55tricks to insert a region that's
- 09:57actually taken from a bacteria,
- 09:59so it's not native to the cells
- 10:01that we are modifying,
- 10:03and we essentially take that little sequence,
- 10:05and we put it into the place in the genome
- 10:09we're interested in and then we
- 10:11have a protein that can bind to
- 10:13that very specific DNA sequence,
- 10:15and so we can monitor any kind of
- 10:18region of the genome that we want
- 10:20just by doing a little bit of editing
- 10:23to that genome and putting these
- 10:25in bacterial gene sequences
- 10:27into our eukaryotic cell,
- 10:28because that's what we want to be studying.
- 10:31In terms of the magnification,
- 10:33you're absolutely right.
- 10:34We are able to do a pretty good
- 10:37job following these events
- 10:39even with a magnification,
- 10:41usually between 100 and 1000 fold over
- 10:44what you could see with the naked eye.
- 10:47Wow, so essentially you can clip the
- 10:49DNA where you want to make a break.
- 10:52Insert a bacterial strand of genetic
- 10:55material, flag it with a particular
- 10:57flag so you know where the break is and
- 11:00then have these chromophores which can
- 11:03light up when they approach that break.
- 11:09That's right, so another critical aspect is
- 11:11we have to know a lot about DNA repair,
- 11:13and fortunately,
- 11:15DNA repair has been a really rich
- 11:17area of research for many decades,
- 11:19and so building again on the knowledge
- 11:21of many others we know pretty well
- 11:23about the kind of timing and the events
- 11:25that are taking place and repair.
- 11:27So protein X shows up,
- 11:29and it always shows up before protein Y.
- 11:32And as you said,
- 11:33we want to know what's happening
- 11:35at the base pair level,
- 11:37like the smallest unit of DNA.
- 11:39We can't really see something
- 11:41that small in this assay,
- 11:42so we're using proxies of factors
- 11:44that we know will show up at different
- 11:47points and that allows us to
- 11:49essentially monitor distinct events,
- 11:51because if we build up our
- 11:54library of these different flags that
- 11:56indicate different times and repair
- 11:58them more able to monitor those events,
- 12:01and we're also able to
- 12:03monitor them in single,
- 12:05individual cells,
- 12:06and it's turned out that that's
- 12:08really important.
- 12:09Because if we look at a million
- 12:12cells doing something they all kind
- 12:13of do it on a little bit different
- 12:16time over a little bit different time,
- 12:18then the cell next
- 12:20door and so by actually watching
- 12:22these events in single cells,
- 12:24that really gives us a resolution
- 12:26that's really important for
- 12:27being able to make very
- 12:29mechanistic conclusions from the data.
- 12:31So we understand that you've got
- 12:33DNA that can get injured and it can
- 12:36get injured in a variety of ways
- 12:39at a variety of places,
- 12:41each of which requires a
- 12:43specific mechanism to repair it.
- 12:45And we now understand that you've
- 12:47built this model to kind of see
- 12:49how DNA repairs itself overtime,
- 12:51so tell us more about how this gets
- 12:53into cancer and into therapeutics
- 12:56And we'll have to do that as soon as
- 12:59we take a break for a medical minute.
- 13:02So please stay tuned to learn more about
- 13:05DNA repair and cancer with my guest
- 13:08Doctor Megan King.
- 13:09Funding for Yale Cancer Answers
- 13:12comes from AstraZeneca, working
- 13:14to eliminate cancer as a cause of death.
- 13:18Learn more at astrazeneca-us.com.
- 13:21Breast cancer is one of the most common
- 13:24cancers in women. In Connecticut alone,
- 13:27approximately 3500 women will be
- 13:29diagnosed with breast cancer this year,
- 13:31but there is hope,
- 13:32thanks to earlier detection,
- 13:34noninvasive treatments and the development
- 13:36of novel therapies to fight breast cancer.
- 13:38Women should schedule a baseline
- 13:40mammogram beginning at age 40 or
- 13:43earlier if they have risk factors
- 13:45associated with the disease.
- 13:46With screening, early detection,
- 13:48and a healthy lifestyle,
- 13:49breast cancer can be defeated.
- 13:52Clinical trials are currently
- 13:54underway at federally designated
- 13:56Comprehensive cancer centers such
- 13:58as Yale Cancer Center and Smilow
- 14:00Cancer Hospital to make innovative
- 14:03new treatments available to patients.
- 14:05Digital breast tomosynthesis, or 3D
- 14:07mammography is also transforming breast
- 14:10cancer screening by significantly
- 14:12reducing unnecessary procedures
- 14:13while picking up more cancers.
- 14:15More information is available at
- 14:18yalecancercenter.org. You're listening
- 14:20to Connecticut Public Radio.
- 14:22Welcome
- 14:22back to Yale Cancer Answers.
- 14:24This is doctor Anees Chagpar and I'm
- 14:27joined tonight by my guest doctor Megan King.
- 14:31We're talking about DNA repair and cancer,
- 14:33and right before the break we had
- 14:36gotten to the point in the story
- 14:39where we were talking about the fact
- 14:41that DNA gets injured and it can
- 14:44get damaged in a variety of places.
- 14:47And each of these breaks may be
- 14:49specific and may require a specific
- 14:52mechanism to repair it and we also
- 14:55talked about the fact that Doctor King's
- 14:58laboratory had figured out a way to
- 15:01actually watch how DNA gets repaired.
- 15:04right under a microscope,
- 15:06which was just fascinating.
- 15:08But now Megan,
- 15:09maybe you can help us to understand
- 15:11how this really evolves into
- 15:13understanding a little bit more
- 15:14about cancer and therapeutics.
- 15:16We built the capability now of
- 15:19monitoring DNA repair and these single cells.
- 15:22And now we get to the point
- 15:24in a basic scientist life where you
- 15:27think about, I've built this assay,
- 15:30it took us many years to do it.
- 15:33What do we want to study?
- 15:35And it's about this time that I had
- 15:38been interacting increasingly
- 15:40with members of Yale Cancer
- 15:42Center and hearing about their
- 15:44work in the clinic and their work
- 15:47that is more translational.
- 15:49So that's when we kind of apply basic
- 15:51science and fundamental principles,
- 15:53directly to new treatments.
- 15:56And through these interactions we became
- 15:58very interested in how we might use this
- 16:02assay to answer a question that has arisen
- 16:05that was clearly critical to the treatment
- 16:07of breast and ovarian cancer that is
- 16:09tied to this familial cancer susceptibility
- 16:12genes BRCA one and 2.
- 16:14I allways have a soft spot in my heart
- 16:16for BRCA 1 because it
- 16:19was discovered by Mary Claire King.
- 16:20No relation but we have the same
- 16:23initials and last name and in fact
- 16:25over the years I've gotten emails
- 16:27intended for Mary Claire King.
- 16:29So we've struck up already a kind
- 16:31of back and forth just because
- 16:33of people getting us mixed up.
- 16:37And so BRCA one really had
- 16:40become a success story of an approach
- 16:43to therapy called synthetic lethality.
- 16:46And so the idea is that
- 16:48BRCA one is very important,
- 16:51particularly in a type of DNA repair
- 16:54called homologous or combination
- 16:55and in individuals who have a
- 16:58loss of function and BRCA one,
- 17:01this leads to an increased susceptibility
- 17:03to breast and ovarian cancer in women.
- 17:07And so you are probably quite familiar
- 17:09with this because it's become very well known.
- 17:13And it's also well known
- 17:15even on the scientific front
- 17:18because of the advent of a therapy
- 17:20which is called PARP inhibitor
- 17:22therapies that specifically kill
- 17:24tumor cells that are defective in the
- 17:27functions of BRCA one or two,
- 17:29and actually more broadly in DNA
- 17:32repair through this mechanism
- 17:33called homologous recombination.
- 17:35And so this is fantastic.
- 17:37What does that mean for a patient?
- 17:39It means that all of their normal
- 17:42tissues can tolerate these drugs.
- 17:44They really only attack the cells
- 17:46that don't have functional DNA repair.
- 17:48So DNA repair is this kind of
- 17:50double edged sword, on the one hand,
- 17:53a defect in DNA repair can lead
- 17:55an individual to be vulnerable
- 17:57to developing a cancer.
- 17:58But if the cancer is defective
- 18:01in DNA repair,
- 18:02it also opens up a window
- 18:04for therapies and PARP
- 18:05Inhibitors were something that
- 18:07could kind of fit into that window,
- 18:09so this was really a very exciting
- 18:12time and continues to be a really new
- 18:14approach to treating cancers that are
- 18:16tied to homologous or combination
- 18:18defects which we now know include a
- 18:21number of contexts that do not involve
- 18:24just BRCA 1 and 2.
- 18:26However,
- 18:27we also knew quite early on
- 18:29that these patients
- 18:30would often have acquired
- 18:31resistance to the PARP inhibitiors.
- 18:33They would initially respond very well,
- 18:35but the response would not
- 18:37be as durable as they and their
- 18:40physicians would like it to be,
- 18:42and investigators had gone in to
- 18:44try to ask how is it that these
- 18:47tumors are evolving, essentially,
- 18:48to become resistant to PARP inhibitors,
- 18:50and particularly in the case of BRCA 1
- 18:53they found that there
- 18:55seemed to be secondary loss
- 18:57of other repair factors that were
- 18:59involved and we became excited
- 19:02about the potential of our assay
- 19:04to maybe provide some insight
- 19:07into how is it that these tumors
- 19:09are getting around this therapy,
- 19:12and even more importantly,
- 19:13might there be ways that we could
- 19:16actually target these cells again?
- 19:19So kind of re-sensitize them
- 19:21to PARP inhibitors,
- 19:23and so we modeled these mutations,
- 19:29so that cells no longer express a number
- 19:32of other factors called 53BP1
- 19:34on a complex called shieldin.
- 19:37And somehow this allows cells that
- 19:40don't have functional BRCA one
- 19:42to still survive in the presence
- 19:44of PARP inhibitors,
- 19:46and so we investigated those using
- 19:48this assay and we discovered that the
- 19:51loss of these factors that drove
- 19:54this PARP inhibitor to no longer work were
- 19:57affecting DNA repair in a very
- 19:59specific way by unleashing
- 20:01a DNA repair factor that really
- 20:03shouldn't be functioning and this is
- 20:05a protein called the bloom's helicase
- 20:07and it was able to kind of step in for
- 20:10BRCA one when these other factors
- 20:12are silenced and take over and so
- 20:15in a sense that seems like a bad thing.
- 20:17Some other protein can come in and
- 20:19and take the place of BRCA one,
- 20:22but it turns out one of the things we
- 20:24learned in our experiments was that
- 20:26there was kind of a new liability.
- 20:29That this activation of this
- 20:31bloom's helicase brought along,
- 20:33and it's actually now this
- 20:36angle that we're targeting,
- 20:37with the idea that there will be
- 20:41new combination therapies that will
- 20:43re sensitize these tumors to PARP
- 20:45inhibitors in combination with either
- 20:48inhibitors of the bloom helicase itself,
- 20:51but also some other additional
- 20:54treatments that have already been being
- 20:57pushed forward.
- 21:00Things like the DNA damage checkpoint,
- 21:02which is something that acts
- 21:04downstream of unresolved DNA damage,
- 21:05so we're pretty excited that these
- 21:08kind of very fundamental insights
- 21:10from this assay that I've described
- 21:12are really leading us to consider
- 21:14new combinations of drugs that
- 21:16may allow for
- 21:18not necessarily to make the PARP inhibitor
- 21:20but be a good therapy on its own for longer,
- 21:24but how we might use combinations
- 21:26that will allow for a very
- 21:28durable response for these patients.
- 21:30Let me make sure that we've got
- 21:33that straight for all of our listeners.
- 21:35So normally everybody has functional
- 21:38BRCA but when you have a mutation in
- 21:41that it no longer becomes effective
- 21:44and the function of that BRCA gene is
- 21:47really to repair DNA because DNA we
- 21:50have in all of our cells and sometimes
- 21:53it can just get damaged and BRCA
- 21:57actually forms is a very important gene
- 22:00that can help us to repair that DNA,
- 22:03but when that's defective we get cancers.
- 22:06But these PARP inhibitors
- 22:09are very effective against tumors
- 22:11that have DNA damage that is not
- 22:15being repaired by BRCA.
- 22:16But then you've got this bloom helicase
- 22:20which can step in for BRCA.
- 22:24It's almost like a fail
- 22:27safe kind of belt and suspenders
- 22:31where if one
- 22:34repair mechanism doesn't work,
- 22:36then another repair mechanism can work,
- 22:38but in cancer cells you really
- 22:40don't want it to work.
- 22:42So what you're now doing is trying
- 22:45to find inhibitors to that secondary
- 22:47repair mechanism to ensure that the PARP
- 22:50inhibitors can kill off those cancer cells.
- 22:54Yes, that's exactly right,
- 22:55and it had been known for a while that
- 22:58there might be these two kind of parallel
- 23:01mechanisms to carry out a specific
- 23:04step in homologous recombination and
- 23:06indeed, it was known already that
- 23:08these two mechanisms existed,
- 23:09but actually we didn't know very much
- 23:12about how a cell could decide to use one
- 23:15mechanism that would be this kind of BRCA
- 23:17one mechanism which works with
- 23:21this blooms' helicase pathway,
- 23:22which as you said is kind
- 23:24of a backup mechanism.
- 23:25One of the things we've discovered is that
- 23:28we think that the bloom's helicase mechanism,
- 23:30although it's a backup,
- 23:31it's really not supposed to
- 23:33be working in normal cells,
- 23:35and that's why there are a number of factors
- 23:38that keep it off and that
- 23:40includes these proteins,
- 23:41the loss of which can drive
- 23:43PARP inhibitor resistance.
- 23:44So we think that actually there's
- 23:46kind of a gain.
- 23:47We would call it a gain of function
- 23:49of the bloom's helicase that underlies
- 23:52the PARP inhibitor resistance.
- 23:54Why might cells not want to be using
- 23:56this bloom's helicase all the time?
- 23:58We think that it's because actually it's
- 24:01not a very well controlled enzyme,
- 24:03so its activity in the repair process
- 24:06kind of goes wild a bit.
- 24:09And even though this allows the cells
- 24:11to get around the PARP inhibitor,
- 24:13it actually may make them susceptible to
- 24:17additional targets
- 24:18that are being developed,
- 24:19and so we think
- 24:21just like a DNA repair defect
- 24:23opens up a therapeutic window,
- 24:25we think this kind of rewiring from
- 24:28BRCA one to the bloom's helicase may
- 24:30also open up new ways that we could
- 24:33go about treating these tumors.
- 24:35So then the next question is,
- 24:37is there a way for us to
- 24:40figure out either upfront before
- 24:42we give any therapy whether a
- 24:44particular patient is going to have
- 24:47this bloom's helicase turned on or not,
- 24:49so that upfront we can decide whether
- 24:51we should just give up our PARP inhibitor,
- 24:54or whether we need to give dual
- 24:56therapy or in a productive manner
- 24:58where we can say, well,
- 25:01if somebody hasn't responded to the
- 25:03PARP inhibitor as we would anticipate,
- 25:05is there a way for us to figure out
- 25:08if this is the mechanism by which
- 25:11the cell is getting around that
- 25:13PARP inhibitor and developing resistance
- 25:15so that we can add in another drug.
- 25:17Do we have those kinds of diagnostics?
- 25:21You're absolutely right,
- 25:22this is exactly what we would like to have,
- 25:25but we don't have it yet,
- 25:27so we would like to be able to take a
- 25:32tumor sample and ask the question,
- 25:34what is happening in this tumor?
- 25:36Is this patient likely to
- 25:38respond to the PARP inhibitor?
- 25:40We know that if they have
- 25:41a defect in DNA repair,
- 25:43they're likely to respond.
- 25:45We know, as I told you, this bloom's
- 25:47helicase tends to go kind of overboard,
- 25:49and we think that we can design
- 25:52what we would call a
- 25:53biomarker of that activity,
- 25:55because it generates far too much of
- 25:57this single stranded DNA generating
- 25:59single strand of DNA is a critical
- 26:01part of homologous or combination,
- 26:03but again,
- 26:04bloom's helicase seems to do too much of this,
- 26:07and we think that we might be
- 26:09able to use proteins that bind
- 26:11to that single stranded DNA,
- 26:13kind of quantitatively,
- 26:14and that may be an indication
- 26:16that this is the mechanism by which
- 26:19these cells elevated PARP inhibitors.
- 26:21Another major mechanism
- 26:22of PARP inhibitor resistance
- 26:23are so called reversion mutations.
- 26:25This is where there's actually a
- 26:27second mutation in the BRCA gene,
- 26:29which essentially can reconstitute
- 26:30its normal function.
- 26:31In this case,
- 26:32the tumor no longer has
- 26:34a DNA repair defect,
- 26:35and so we'd really like to
- 26:37be able to tell is there a
- 26:39reconstitution of normal repair.
- 26:41But maybe that repair still has
- 26:43some defects that we can target,
- 26:45or is repair kind of totally normal,
- 26:47in which case we know we're going
- 26:49to have to think about another
- 26:51type of therapy to treat that patient.
- 26:53So these are in development and
- 26:55this is something we're really
- 26:57interested in,
- 26:59particularly again with our
- 27:00colleagues here and at Yale Cancer Center.
- 27:02To continue to push forward by
- 27:04partnering with those clinicians who
- 27:06are running clinical trials in this space.
- 27:09In patients with BRCA or NOTE Confidence: 0.98452777
- 27:11other homologous recombination
- 27:12defects who have been enrolled
- 27:13on PARP inhibitors and looking at
- 27:15those resistance mechanisms.
- 27:17And if we can develop these
- 27:19types of biomarkers.
- 27:21I mean it's so fascinating
- 27:23thinking about the fact that
- 27:26when we started this conversation,
- 27:28we started by saying that you know DNA
- 27:30can be damaged in different ways and each
- 27:33requires a specific repair mechanism.
- 27:35But now thinking about how you're
- 27:38actually taking your science
- 27:40and in a way kind of again,
- 27:42moving towards personalized medicine,
- 27:43figuring out, well,
- 27:44if somebody develops resistance,
- 27:47how exactly is that resistance
- 27:49mechanism functioning?
- 27:49And how can we get around it?
- 27:54Absolutely, and I want to highlight
- 27:56we can do this really efficiently
- 27:58in cells in a laboratory that's
- 28:00never going to tell us about what
- 28:02is happening in individual patients.
- 28:05So really, this discovery requires the
- 28:07commitment of patients who've been
- 28:09enrolled on these clinical trials.
- 28:11That's not an easy thing to
- 28:13ask of patients in this case.
- 28:15For example, they've signed up for
- 28:17serial biopsies of their tumor,
- 28:19but that is absolutely essential
- 28:21for us to continue to discover
- 28:24the mechanisms that are at play and for
- 28:26us to come up with better treatments.
- 28:29Doctor Megan King is an associate
- 28:31professor of cell biology and of molecular,
- 28:33cellular, and developmental biology
- 28:35at the Yale School of Medicine.
- 28:37If you have questions,
- 28:39the address is cancer answers at
- 28:41yale.edu and past editions of the
- 28:43program are available in audio and
- 28:45written form at yalecancercenter.org.
- 28:47We hope you'll join us next week to
- 28:49learn more about the fight against
- 28:52cancer here on Connecticut Public Radio.
- 28:54Funding for Yale Cancer
- 28:56Answers is provided by Smilow
- 28:58Cancer Hospital and AstraZeneca.