Links Between DNA Damage and Metabolism, Pathways Causing Bone Marrow Failure in Fanconi Anemia, and Therapeutic Implications

Abstract SCI-3

Recent work from my lab has discovered that metabolism generates reactive aldehydes. These reactive molecules are potent damagers of DNA. The consequences of this are revealed by the inactivation of enzymes that detoxify these aldehydes and the Fanconi anemia DNA repair pathway in mice and vertebrate cell lines. The scientific session presentation will discuss this work and recent unpublished research on how natural aldehydes damage blood stem cells. This work has consequences for understanding how metabolism and ethanol exposure can be genotoxic, particularly in the vast population of Southeast Asians carrying a genetic defect in aldehyde catabolism (“pink flushers”). It is also relevant to the emergence of bone marrow failure and leukemia in Fanconi anemia.