The Role of Telomere Dysfunction in Driving Genomic Instability

The mechanistic role of radiation-induced genomic instability in radiation carcinogenesis is an attractive hypothesis that remains to be rigorously tested. There are few in vivo studies on which to base judgments, but work in our laboratory with mouse models of radiogenic mammary neoplasia provided the first indications that certain forms of genetically predisposed radiation-induced genomic instability may contribute to tumor development. The central goal of this research project is to more firmly establish the mechanistic basis of this radiation-associated genomic instability and, from this, to assess whether such induced instability might play a major role in tumorigenesis at low doses of low LET radiation. In the case of mouse mammary tumors, susceptibility to induced instability is expressed as an autosomal recessive trait in mammary epithelial cells and is manifest largely as excess chromatid damage. Recently published studies associate this form of instability with DNA repair deficiency, polymorphic variation in the gene encoding DNA-PKcs (Prkdc), and mammary associated susceptibility. The underlying hypothesis being tested in this project is that tumor-associated genomic instability is preferentially expressed in certain recombinogenic genomic domains and that these may be cell lineage/individual-specific.