page_title: DNA repair
section_title: Frequencies of epimutations in DNA repair genes
hierarchical_section_title: DNA repair / Cancer / Frequencies of epimutations in DNA repair genes
caption_attribution_description: English: A chart of common DNA damaging agents, examples of lesions they cause in DNA, and pathways used to repair these lesions. Also shown are many of the genes in these pathways, an indication of which genes are epigenetically regulated to have reduced (or increased) expression in various cancers. It also shows genes in the error prone microhomology-mediated end joining pathway with increased expression in various cancers.
context_page_description: DNA repair is a collection of processes by which a cell identifies and corrects damage to the DNA molecules that encode its genome. In human cells, both normal metabolic activities and environmental factors such as radiation can cause DNA damage, resulting in as many as 1 million individual molecular lesions per cell per day. Many of these lesions cause structural damage to the DNA molecule and can alter or eliminate the cell's ability to transcribe the gene that the affected DNA encodes. Other lesions induce potentially harmful mutations in the cell's genome, which affect the survival of its daughter cells after it undergoes mitosis. As a consequence, the DNA repair process is constantly active as it responds to damage in the DNA structure. When normal repair processes fail, and when cellular apoptosis does not occur, irreparable DNA damage may occur, including double-strand breaks and DNA crosslinkages. This can eventually lead to malignant tumors, or cancer as per the two hit hypothesis.
  The rate of DNA repair is dependent on many factors, including the cell type, the age of the cell, and the extracellular environment.
context_section_description: Deficiencies in DNA repair enzymes are occasionally caused by a newly arising somatic mutation in a DNA repair gene, but are much more frequently caused by epigenetic alterations that reduce or silence expression of DNA repair genes. For example, when 113 colorectal cancers were examined in sequence, only four had a missense mutation in the DNA repair gene MGMT, while the majority had reduced MGMT expression due to methylation of the MGMT promoter region (an epigenetic alteration). Five different studies found that between 40% and 90% of colorectal cancers have reduced MGMT expression due to methylation of the MGMT promoter region.
  Similarly, out of 119 cases of mismatch repair-deficient colorectal cancers that lacked DNA repair gene PMS2 expression, PMS2 was deficient in 6 due to mutations in the PMS2 gene, while in 103 cases PMS2 expression was deficient because its pairing partner MLH1 was repressed due to promoter methylation (PMS2 protein is unstable in the absence of MLH1). In the other 10 cases, loss of PMS2 expression was likely due to epigenetic overexpression of the microRNA, miR-155, which down-regulates MLH1.
  In a further example, epigenetic defects were found in various cancers (e.g. breast, ovarian, colorectal and head and neck). Two or three deficiencies in the expression of ERCC1, XPF or PMS2 occur simultaneously in the majority of 49 colon cancers evaluated by Facista et al.
  The chart in this section shows some frequent DNA damaging agents, examples of DNA lesions they cause, and the pathways that deal with these DNA damages.  At least 169 enzymes are either directly employed in DNA repair or influence DNA repair processes. Of these, 83 are directly employed in repairing the 5 types of DNA damages illustrated in the chart.
  Some of the more well studied genes central to these repair processes are shown in the chart.  The gene designations shown in red, gray or cyan indicate genes frequently epigenetically altered in various types of cancers.  Wikipedia articles on each of the genes highlighted by red, gray or cyan describe the epigenetic alteration(s) and the cancer(s) in which these epimutations are found.  Review articles, and broad experimental survey articles also document most of these epigenetic DNA repair deficiencies in cancers.
  Red-highlighted genes are frequently reduced or silenced by epigenetic mechanisms in various cancers.  When these genes have low or absent expression, DNA damages can accumulate.  Replication errors past these damages (see translesion synthesis) can lead to increased mutations and, ultimately, cancer. Epigenetic repression of DNA repair genes in accurate DNA repair pathways appear to be central to carcinogenesis.
  The two gray-highlighted genes RAD51 and BRCA2, are required for homologous recombinational repair.  They are sometimes epigenetically over-expressed and sometimes under-expressed in certain cancers.  As indicated in the Wikipedia articles on RAD51 and BRCA2, such cancers ordinarily have epigenetic deficiencies in other DNA repair genes. These repair deficiencies would likely cause increased unrepaired DNA damages. The over-expression of RAD51 and BRCA2 seen in these cancers may reflect selective pressures for compensatory RAD51 or BRCA2 over-expression and increased homologous recombinational repair to at least partially deal with such excess DNA damages.  In those cases where RAD51 or BRCA2 are under-expressed, this would itself lead to increased unrepaired DNA damages. Replication errors past these damages (see translesion synthesis) could cause increased mutations and cancer, so that under-expression of RAD51 or BRCA2 would be carcinogenic in itself.
  Cyan-highlighted genes are in the microhomology-mediated end joining (MMEJ) pathway and are up-regulated in cancer.  MMEJ is an additional error-prone inaccurate repair pathway for double-strand breaks.  In MMEJ repair of a double-strand break, an homology of 5–25 complementary base pairs between both paired strands is sufficient to align the strands, but mismatched ends (flaps) are usually present. MMEJ removes t
caption: A chart of common DNA damaging agents, examples of lesions they cause in DNA, and pathways used to repair these lesions. Also shown are many of the genes in these pathways, an indication of which genes are epigenetically regulated to have reduced (or increased) expression in various cancers. It also shows genes in the error prone microhomology-mediated end joining pathway with increased expression in various cancers.
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