Population distribution of xeroderma pigmentosum

Understanding photodermatoses associated with defective DNA repair: Syndromes with cancer predisposition

Hereditary photodermatoses are a spectrum of rare photosensitive disorders that are often caused by genetic deficiency or malfunction of various components of the DNA repair pathway. This results clinically in extreme photosensitivity, with many syndromes exhibiting an increased risk of cutaneous malignancies. This review will focus specifically on the syndromes with malignant potential, including xeroderma pigmentosum, Bloom syndrome, and Rothmund-Thomson syndrome. The typical phenotypic findings of each disorder will be examined and contrasted, including noncutaneous identifiers to aid in diagnosis. The management of these patients will also be discussed. At this time, the mainstay of therapy remains strict photoprotection; however, genetic therapies are under investigation.

Research on plants for the understanding of diseases of nuclear and mitochondrial origin

Different model organisms, such as Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster, mouse, cultured human cell lines, among others, were used to study the mechanisms of several human diseases. Since human genes and proteins have been structurally and functionally conserved in plant organisms, the use of plants, especially Arabidopsis thaliana, as a model system to relate molecular defects to clinical disorders has recently increased. Here, we briefly review our current knowledge of human diseases of nuclear and mitochondrial origin and summarize the experimental findings of plant homologs implicated in each process.

The role of XPC: implications in cancer and oxidative DNA damage

The accumulation of DNA damage is a slow but hazardous phenomenon that may lead to cell death, accelerated aging features and cancer. One of the most versatile and important defense mechanisms against the accumulation of DNA damage is nucleotide excision repair (NER), in which the Xeroderma pigmentosum group C (XPC) protein plays a prominent role. NER can be divided into global genome repair (GG-NER) and transcription coupled repair (TC-NER). XPC is a key factor in GG-NER where it functions in DNA damage recognition and after which the repair machinery is recruited to eliminate the DNA damage. Defective XPC functioning has been shown to result in a cancer prone phenotype, in human as well as in mice. Mutation accumulation in XPC deficient mice is accelerated and increased, resulting in an increased tumor incidence. More recently XPC has also been linked to functions outside of NER since XPC deficient mice show a divergent tumor spectrum compared to other NER deficient mouse models. Multiple in vivo and in vitro experiments indicate that XPC appears to be involved in the initiation of several DNA damage-induced cellular responses. XPC seems to function in the removal of oxidative DNA damage, redox homeostasis and cell cycle control. We hypothesize that this combination of increased oxidative DNA damage sensitivity, disturbed redox homeostasis together with inefficient cell cycle control mechanisms are causes of the observed increased cancer susceptibility in oxygen exposed tissues. Such a phenotype is absent in other NER-deficient mice, including Xpa.