BACKGROUND Breast cancer 1 (BRCA1) protein inactivation in sporadic ovarian carcinoma (OC) is common and low BRCA1 expression is linked with platinum sensitivity. The clinical validation of BRCA1 as a prognostic marker in OC remains unresolved. PATIENTS AND METHODS In 251 patient samples from the NCIC CTG clinical trial, OV.16, BRCA1 protein expression was determined by immunohistochemistry. ...

BRCA1, a tumor suppressor, participates in DNA damage signaling and repair. Previously, we showed that BRCA1 overexpression caused inhibition of telomerase activity and telomere shortening in breast and prostate cancer cells. We now report that BRCA1 knockdown causes increased telomerase reverse transcriptase expression, telomerase activity, and telomere length; but studies utilizing a combinat...

Copy number deletions and loss of heterozygosity of the BRCA1 gene have been frequently reported in sporadic breast cancer. We studied their relationship with BRCA1 gene expression (the haplo-insufficiency hypothesis) with real-time quantitative reverse transcription-PCR. Expression levels of both full-length and BRCA1-Delta 11b splice variant mRNA were studied, and they showed strong correlati...

The tumor suppressor BRCA1 interacts with many proteins and undergoes multiple modifications on DNA damage. ATM, a key molecule of the DNA damage response, phosphorylates S1189 of BRCA1 after gamma-irradiation. S1189 of BRCA1 is known as a unique ATM phosphorylation site in BRCA1 exon 11. To study the functions of ATM-dependent phosphorylation of BRCA1-S1189, we generated a mouse model carrying...

BRCA1-a breast and ovarian cancer suppressor gene-promotes genome integrity. To study the functionality of BRCA1 in the heterozygous state, we established a collection of primary human BRCA1(+/+) and BRCA1(mut/+) mammary epithelial cells and fibroblasts. Here we report that all BRCA1(mut/+) cells exhibited multiple normal BRCA1 functions, including the support of homologous recombination- type ...

In response to DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), BRCA1 forms biochemically distinct complexes with certain other DNA damage response proteins. These structures, some of which are required for homologous recombination (HR)-type DSB repair, concentrate at distinct nuclear foci that demarcate sites of genome breakage. Polyubiquitin binding by one of these structures, the RAP80/BRCA1 complex, is req...

Understanding BRCA1 mutant cancers is hampered by difficulties in obtaining primary cells from patients. We therefore generated and characterized 24 induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines from fibroblasts of eight individuals from a BRCA1 5382insC mutant family. All BRCA1 5382insC heterozygous fibroblasts, iPSCs, and teratomas maintained equivalent expression of both wild-type and mutant BR...

background: breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women. breast cancer type 1 susceptibility gene (brca1) is a tumor suppressor gene, involved in dna damage repair and in 81% of the breast-ovarian cancer families were due to brca1. in some clinically investigated genes, the intragenic marker polymorphism is important and the screening of such mutations is faster by using short tandem r...

We have previously shown that endogenous BRCA1 and overexpressed epitope-tagged BRCA1 are present in the transcription complex called the RNA polymerase II holoenzyme (holo-pol). In this study, we further characterized BRCA1 association with the holo-pol by overexpressing deletion mutants of epitope-tagged BRCA1. We found that BRCA1-associated RING domain protein (BARD1) is a component of the h...

Functional inactivation of BRCA1 is an important mechanism involved in breast cancer pathogenesis. Mutation is often responsible for BRCA1 inactivation in familial breast cancer, but is not responsible for the decreased levels of BRCA1 seen in a subset of sporadic breast cancer patients. To determine if aberrant cytosine methylation of the BRCA1 promoter is associated with decreased BRCA1 gene ...