Tumor Treating Fields cause replication stress and interfere with DNA replication fork maintenance: implications for cancer therapy

Tumor-treating fields (TTFields) is a non-invasive physical modality of cancer therapy that applies low-intensity, intermediate frequency, alternating electric fields to a tumor. Interference with mitosis was the first mechanism describing the effects of TTFields on cancer cells, however, TTFields was shown to not only reduce the rejoining of radiation-induced DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), but to also induce DNA DSBs. The mechanism(s) by which TTFields generates DNA DSBs is related to the generation of replication stress including reduced expression of the DNA replication complex genes MCM6 and MCM10 and the Fanconi's Anemia pathway genes.
Source: Translational Research - Category: Research Authors: Source Type: research