Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), Trichothiodystrophy (TTD) and Cockayne Syndrome (CS) are rare, recessive disorders caused by mutational defects in the Nucleotide Excision Repair (NER) pathway and/or disruption of basic cellular DNA transcription. To date, a multitude of mutations in the XPD/ERCC2 gene have been described, many of which give rise to NER- and DNA transcription related diseases, which...

Cataracts are the major eye disorder and have been associated mainly with mutations in lens-specific genes, but cataracts are also frequently associated with complex syndromes. In a large-scale high-throughput ENU mutagenesis screen we analyzed the offspring of paternally treated C3HeB/FeJ mice for obvious dysmorphologies. We identified a mutant suffering from rough coat and small eyes only in ...

BACKGROUND Benzo[a]pyrene(B[a]P), and its ultimate metabolite Benzo[a]pyrene 7,8-diol 9,10-epoxide (BPDE), are classic DNA damaging carcinogens. DNA damage caused by BPDE is normally repaired by Nucleotide Excision Repair (NER), of which ERCC1 and ERCC2/XPD exert an indispensable role. Genetic variations in ERCC1 and ERCC2 have been related to DNA repair efficiency. In this study we used lympho...

XRCC1 (X-ray cross-complementing group 1) and ERCC2 (excision repair cross-complementing group 2) are two major DNA repair proteins. Polymorphisms of these two genes have been associated with altered DNA repair capacity and cancer risk. We have described statistically significant interactions between the ERCC2 polymorphisms (Asp312Asn and Lys751Gln) and smoking in lung cancer risk. In this case...

ERCC2 is indispensable for nucleotide excision repair pathway, and its functional polymorphisms may be associated with cancer risk. In a large case-control study of 1126 esophageal squamous cell carcinomas (ESCC) patients and 1131 controls, we genotyped two SNPs in ERCC2 (rs238406 G > T and rs13181 T > G) and assessed their associations with ESCC risk. We found a significantly elevated ESCC ris...

Ionizing radiation is the most established risk factor for meningioma formation. Our aim was to evaluate the main effect of selected candidate genes on the development of meningioma and their possible interaction with ionizing radiation in the causation of this tumor. The total study population included 440 cases and controls: 150 meningioma patients who were irradiated for tinea capitis in chi...

We previously found that 2-chloroethyl-3-sarcosin-amide-1-nitrosourea (SarCNU), a new chloroethylnitrosourea analogue presently in phase I clinical trials, is a selective cytotoxin that enters cells via the extraneuronal transporter for monoamine transmitters (EMT). In this study, we assessed whether EMT expression correlates with SarCNU cytotoxicity by determining EMT expression in 23 human tu...

We conducted a study to investigate the association between ERCC1 (rs3212986) and ERCC2 (rs13181) gene polymorphisms and the risk of pancreatic cancer in a Chinese population. A total of 217 pancreatic cancer patients and 244 control subjects were recruited from the Nuclear Industry 215 Hospital of Shaanxi Province between February 2013 and December 2014. Genomic DNA was extracted from peripher...

We conducted a case-control study to investigate the association of ERCC1 (rs3212986) and ERCC2 (rs13181) gene polymorphisms with the susceptibility to bladder cancer. A total of 194 bladder cancer patients and 240 control subjects were recruited from the Zhumadian City Center Hospital between March 2012 and March 2014. Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFL...