Double strand break repair and Genome Integrity Team
This team belongs to the UMR 9019 Genome Integrity and Cancers.
The team is investigating the molecular details of the DNA repair mechanisms of breaks and discontinuities occurring in our genome, Homologous Recombination (HR) and Non-homologous End Joining (NHEJ). These mechanisms are important in keeping our genome integrity and are often found mutated in individuals with higher predisposition to cancer. In therapy, targeting key proteins of these mechanisms of DNA repair is a suitable strategy to eliminate cancerous cells, especially for tumors that already carry mutations in genes of alternative DNA repair pathways.
Thanks to the support of funding agencies like the ANR and the ARC foundation our basic research allows us to observe DNA and repair proteins at high resolution and understand how they work in different situations during the cell cycle progression.
Current research
- Study the mechanisms of regulation by post-translational modification of key proteins of the Homologous Recombination pathway.
- Biochemical studies of the proteins involved in the homologous recombination reactions of strand invasion, joint molecule resolution and homology search.
- Observation by electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy of the DNA intermediates and the protein-DNA complexes of the different HR reactions and steps from in vivo and in vitro samples.
- Study the structural proteins of DNA-protein complexes of the HR and NHEJ pathways.
- Dissection of potential therapeutic targets in synthetic lethality approaches for cancer therapy.
TEM image of a replication fork
Example of chromosome segregation and mis-segregation of yeast cells carrying a fluorescent label in chromosome VII
