Study Reveals How UV Radiation May Drive Melanoma
Source: Duke University School of Medicine, March 2023
Transcription factors bind to DNA to help control gene regulation. They help ensure that the right genes are expressed in the right cells at the right time by binding to their target sites quickly and selectively. Just as a person may be drawn to a specific book in a library, a transcription factor is drawn to a specific target in DNA. But what happens when transcription factors pick the wrong target?
Raluca Gordân, PhD, associate professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics, and team investigated how transcription factors may affect the production of genetic mutations, or mutagenesis, by binding to the wrong sites after being exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation. This is an important step in being able to identify drivers of cancer, in this case, melanoma, which is the most serious type of skin cancer. Their results were published in PNAS on March 8.
While typically transcription factors bind onto regular, undamaged DNA, they can also bind to damaged DNA. “If that binding is strong enough,” Gordân said, “then we hypothesize that they can interfere with DNA repair.”