Editorial
PARP inhibitors and the treatment of breast cancer: beyond BRCA1/2?
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* Corresponding author: W Lee Kraus wlk5@cornell.edu
1 Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, 465 Biotechnology Building, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
2 Graduate Field of Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology, Cornell University, 465 Biotechnology Building, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
3 Department of Pharmacology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, 1300 York Avenue, New York, NY 10021, USA
Breast Cancer Research 2009, 11:111 doi:10.1186/bcr2451
Published: 26 November 2009Abstract
Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors have been explored as therapeutic agents for the treatment of hereditary breast and ovarian cancers harboring mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2. In a new study, Inbar-Rozensal and colleagues show that phenanthridine-derived PARP inhibitors promote cell cycle arrest and cell death in breast cancer cells lacking BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations and prevent the growth of tumors from xenografts of these cells in immunocompromised mice. These results suggest a potential broader utility of PARP-1 inhibitors in the treatment of breast cancer, although further mechanistic studies are needed.