Further Evidence for BRCA1 Communication with the Inactive X Chromosome

Cell, Volume 128, Issue 5, 9 March 2007, Pages 991-1002
Daniel P. Silver, Stoil D. Dimitrov, Jean Feunteun, Rebecca Gelman, Ronny Drapkin, Shihua D. Lu, Elena Shestakova, Soundarapandian Velmurugan, Nicholas DeNunzio, Serban Dragomir, Jessica Mar, Xiaoling Liu, Sven Rottenberg, Jos Jonkers, Shridar Ganesan and David M. Livingston

Summary

, a breast and ovarian cancer-suppressor gene, exerts tumor-suppressing functions that appear to be associated, at least in part, with its DNA repair, checkpoint, and mitotic regulatory activities. Earlier work from our laboratory also suggested an ability of BRCA1 to communicate with the inactive X chromosome (Xi) in female somatic cells (). (this issue of ) have challenged this conclusion. Here we discuss recently published data from our laboratory and others and present new results that, together, provide further support for a role of BRCA1 in the regulation of XIST concentration on Xi in somatic cells.