News item posted on 2015-07-17

Research Spotlight - Brandt Eichman

CSB Researcher Brandt Eichman, Ph.D., and graduate student Diana Chavez, working in collaboration with a research team at Stanford University, have discovered how the protein HLTF (helicase-like transcription factor) recognizes and remodels stalled replication “forks.” Their findings, published in Molecular Cell, shed light on processes that help cells tolerate DNA damage and have implications for cancer therapies that target DNA replication and repair.

Although a fundamental process in biology, DNA replication isn’t fully understood and doesn’t always proceed smoothly. DNA damage and other problems can cause the proteins that copy DNA to stall, leading to mutations and possibly cancer or other diseases. The HLTF remodeling ensures that DNA is copied if fork-stalling lesions are present.

Understanding how cells tolerate and repair DNA damage has implications for cancer therapies. HLTF and other proteins like it may also be targets for new cancer therapies as well.

Read the complete article online at Research News @ Vanderbilt.

Author: Karen D. Davis