Cellular Responses to Under-Replication

The duplication of the human genome is a critical yet delicate process. The entire genome must be duplicated to propagate genetic information. For example, loss of the genes necessary for the regulation of development and cell cycle by incomplete replication can cause develomental disorders and cancer. Incomplete replication can be caused by certain envionmental stresses or it can occur spontaniously, when one of the many enyzmes involved in genome duplication fails. Recent evidence from our group indicates that under-replication that occurs even in unstressed cells is surpisingly frequent. We started to investigate how cells respond to and resolve unreplicated regions of genome. Once better understood, these mechanisms can be targeted for therapeautic treatment to improve the specificity of killing cancer cells.