BRCA2 Protein Structure Described

Oct 7, 2014, 08:35 AM by Michael Croft

Imperial College London News | The BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are well known for mutations that raise the risk of developing breast cancer, but their structure, and the mechanisms by which healthy copies of these proteins repair broken DNA strands, have been little understood.

October 7, 2014 | BRCA1 and BRCA2 are likely the two genes best known by name to the general public, thanks to the sharply elevated risk of breast cancer that mutations to these genes can confer, and the growing popularity of personal testing for these risk factors. Now, for the first time, the structure of the BRCA2 protein has been described in detail, showing how it works in pairs, interacting with the protein RAD51, to bind to broken strands of DNA, build filaments across the gap, and attract complementary DNA sequences to fill the break. Imperial College London News