DNA alkylation damage and autophagy induction.

Many alkylating agents are used as chemotherapeutic drugs and have a long history of clinical application. These agents inflict a wide range of DNA damage resulting in a complex cellular response. After DNA damage, cells trigger a series of signaling cascades promoting cellular survival and cell cycle blockage which enables time for DNA repair to occur. More recently, induction of autophagy has been observed in cancer cells after treatment with different DNA-targeted anticancer drugs, including alkylating agents. Several studies have demonstrated that induction of autophagy after DNA damage delays apoptotic cell death and may therefore lead to chemoresistance, which is the limiting factor for successful chemotherapy. On the other hand, depending on the extent of damage and the cellular context, the induction of autophagy may also contribute to cell death. Given these conflicting results, many studies have been conducted to better define the role of autophagy in cancer cells in response to chemotherapy. In this review, we describe the main alkylating agents used in clinical oncology as well as the cellular response they evoke with emphasis on autophagy.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system to study the response to anticancer agents.

The development of new strategies for cancer therapeutics is indispensable for the improvement of standard protocols and the creation of other possibilities in cancer treatment. Yeast models have been employed to study numerous molecular aspects directly related to cancer development, as well as to determine the genetic contexts associated with anticancer drug sensitivity or resistance. The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae presents conserved cellular processes with high homology to humans, and it is a rapid, inexpensive and efficient compound screening tool. However, yeast models are still underused in cancer research and for screening of antineoplastic agents. Here, the employment of S. cerevisiae as a model system to anticancer research is discussed and exemplified. Focusing on the important determinants in genomic maintenance and cancer development, including DNA repair, cell cycle control and epigenetics, this review proposes the use of mutant yeast panels to mimic cancer phenotypes, screen and study tumor features and synthetic lethal interactions. Finally, the benefits and limitations of the yeast model are highlighted, as well as the strategies to overcome S. cerevisiae model limitations.

PARPs and the DNA damage response.

Adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-ribosylation is an important posttranslational modification catalyzed by a variety of enzymes, including poly (ADP ribose) polymerases (PARPs), which use nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD(+)) as a substrate to synthesize and transfer ADP-ribose units to acceptor proteins. The PARP family members possess a variety of structural domains, span a wide range of functions and localize to various cellular compartments. Among the molecular actions attributed to PARPs, their role in the DNA damage response (DDR) has been widely documented. In particular, PARPs 1-3 are involved in several cellular processes that respond to DNA lesions, which include DNA damage recognition, signaling and repair as well as local transcriptional blockage, chromatin remodeling and cell death induction. However, how these enzymes are able to participate in such numerous and diverse mechanisms in response to DNA damage is not fully understood. Herein, the DDR functions of PARPs 1-3 and the emerging roles of poly (ADP ribose) polymers in DNA damage are reviewed. The development of PARP inhibitors, their applications and mechanisms of action are also discussed in the context of the DDR.

DNA repair pathways involved in repair of lesions induced by 5-fluorouracil and its active metabolite FdUMP.

5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) is an antitumor antimetabolite that can be converted into fluoronucleotides and FdUMP. Fluoronucleotides are incorporated into DNA and RNA, while FdUMP results in nucleotide pool imbalance. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is unable to convert 5-FU into FdUMP, making yeast a unique model system to study the cellular effects of 5-FU and FdUMP independently. A panel of repair-deficient yeast strains was used to identify the DNA repair pathways needed for repair of lesions generated by 5-FU or FdUMP. This included yeast deficient in base excision repair (BER), nucleotide excision repair (NER), translesion synthesis (TLS), mismatch repair (MMR), post-replication repair (PRR), homologous recombination (HR) and non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ). The results revealed an important role of BER, since BER-mutants (ntg1, ntg2, apn1, apn2) showed pronounced sensitivity to both 5-FU and FdUMP. MMR mutants also showed high sensitivity to both compounds. In contrast, deficiencies in NER, NHEJ and TLS repair had only minor influence on the sensitivity to FU and FdUMP. Interestingly, deficiencies in HR (rad52) and PPR (rad6, rad18) were associated with increased sensitivity to 5-FU, but not to FdUMP. Taken together, our study reveals an important contribution of DNA repair pathways on the sensitivity to 5-FU and its active metabolite FdUMP. Importantly, the repair mechanisms differed for the 2 antimetabolites since lesions induced by 5-FU were repaired by BER, MMR, HR and PRR, while only BER and MMR were required for repair of FdUMP-induced lesions.

5-Fluorouracil and its active metabolite FdUMP cause DNA damage in human SW620 colon adenocarcinoma cell line.

5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) is an antineoplasic drug widely used to treat cancer. Its cytotoxic effect has been principally ascribed to the misincorporation of fluoronucleotides into DNA and RNA during their synthesis, and the inhibition of thymidylate synthase (TS) by FdUMP (one of the 5-FU active metabolites), which leads to nucleotide pool imbalance. In the present study, we compared the ability of 5-FU and FdUMP to induce apoptosis and to influence the cell cycle progression in human colon SW620 adenocarcinoma cells in regards to their genotoxic and clastogenic activities. Our study demonstrates that 5-FU induces SSB, DSB and apoptosis earlier than FdUMP. Interestingly, while both drugs are able to induce apoptosis, their effect on the cell cycle progression differed. Indeed, 5-FU induces an arrest in G1/S while FdUMP causes an arrest in G2/M. Independently of the temporal difference in strand breaks and apoptosis induction, as well as the differential cell cycle modulation, both drugs presented similar clastogenic effects. The different pattern of cell cycle arrest suggests that the two drugs induce different types of primary DNA lesions that could lead to the activation of different checkpoints and recruit different DNA repair pathways.