Genome Maintenance in Cancer Biology and Therapy

Dear Colleagues,

Genome instability is a defined hallmark of cancer, and is an important mechanism in tumour development, progression, heterogeneity and drug resistance; the latter two being two common barriers to effective treatment. Genome instability in tumour cells often arises through heightened DNA damage and/or replication stress; a respective consequence of increased metabolic processes that produce DNA damaging by-products, and an increased proliferative state due to the action of activated oncogenes.

To preserve genomic integrity, human cells have developed interconnected genome maintenance mechanisms that facilitate an orchestration of DNA damage response pathways, DNA repair mechanisms, cell cycle checkpoints and cell division processes. The many cancer predisposing human diseases that are associated with underlying mutations in/dysregulation of key proteins within these pathways highlights the importance of genome stability mechanisms in the suppression of tumour development and progression.

In addition to a deeper understanding of cancer biology, the study of genome maintenance mechanisms and their co-ordinated regulation has revealed new therapeutic targets to improve the effectiveness of existing radio-/chemotherapy regimes, as well as identifying exploitable tumour-selective vulnerabilities around which both novel or repurposed therapeutic strategies can be developed. Furthering our understanding of genome maintenance mechanisms is therefore vital to help understand how such processes become dysfunctional in cancer development/progression, and to identify new targets and/or biomarkers to develop new therapeutic strategies to improve the clinical management of these disease and improve patient survival.

This new Topic section of Cancers therefore aims to publish new research articles and timely reviews on aspects of genome maintenance mechanisms that either play a role in cancer development and progression or reveal new therapeutic opportunities to better treat this disease.

Dr. Spencer Collis
Collection Editor

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