Friday, October 28, 2011
Hall 1-2 (San Jose Convention Center)
Fanconi anemia (FA) is a rare genetic disorder characterized by genomic instability and a high predisposition to cancer. At the cellular level FA cells show hypersensitivity to DNA interstrand crosslinking agents suggesting that FA cells are defective in repairing DNA damage intermediates. The FA protein FANCM has been shown to associate with the repair protein BLM at sites of DNA damage indicating a possible role in homologous recombination. In Drosophila melanogaster additional FA proteins are missing and the ortholog of FANCM shows divergence from other species. This raises the question as to the biological role of FANCM in Drosophila. fancm mutants were screened for sensitivity to DNA damaging agents in order to determine a biological role for DmFANCM. A biochemical role for DmFANCM in DNA repair and association with BLM and other repair proteins is under investigation.