BRCA1 and cell signaling

The breast cancer and ovarian cancer susceptibility gene BRCA1 encodes a nu cleoprotein whose mutations or aberrant expression is associated with both inherited and sporadic cancers. Studies over the last 6 years have suggeste d that BRCA1 may function as a scaffold in the assembly of a multi-protein complex, which plays a role in gene transcription, DNA damage repair, and t ranscription-coupled DNA damage repair. In this review, we discuss the impl ications drawn from the studies of BRCA1-interacting proteins and the cellu lar signaling pathways that may be involved in controlling the functions of BRCA1.