DNA Repair in Cancer.

Highlights from the article: DNA repair system has evolved to maintain the genomic integrity to defend against both endogenous and exogenous sources of DNA damage, such as endogenous factors include reactive oxygen species, replication errors or mistakes in meiosis and exogenous factors include ultraviolet (UV) radiation, ionizing radiation (IR), and some other chemicals or chemotherapeutic agents. Indeed, defects in DNA repair pathways contribute to many heritable cancer predisposition syndromes; however, cancer-related DNA repair deficiency may also occur in sporadic cancer case. In these years, many cancer-related germline mutations in DNA repair have been reported; thus to detect these genetic variations gives us a chance to evaluate the cancer risk of the individual with these mutations.