Therapeutics: Turnover

摘要

It is often taken as read that we understand the mechanism of action of most chemotherapeutic drugs that are routinely used in the clinic. However, recent data from Fan Yang, Christopher Kemp and Steven Henikoff indicate that the much used anthracycline, doxorubicin, has a direct effect on histone turnover at actively transcribed genes. Doxorubicin is used to treat a variety of cancer types and kills cells by intercalating into the DNA and trapping topoisomerase II on the DNA during topoisomerase ll-mediated DNA double-strand cleavage. This results in the generation of DNA double-strand breaks.