Uploaded November 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and their colleagues at Imperial College London have identified how a key protein in cancer cells changes shape to kick-start the repair of DNA damage caused by chemotherapy or radiation. Blocking this built-in repair mechanism with a drug has the potential to make chemotherapy or radiation more effective, the researchers say. The key protein is called Mec1 in yeast and ATR in humans. The video shows two Mec1 molecules bound together (one is in color on the left; the other is gray on the right). The side in color shows how the protein moves to switch between active and inactive states.
Video by Luke Yates
See here for a news release about this research: https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/making-cancer-cells-more-susceptible-to-dying/
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and their colleagues at Imperial College London have identified how a key protein in cancer cells changes shape to kick-start the repair of DNA damage caused by chemotherapy or radiation. Blocking this built-in repair mechanism with a drug has the potential to make chemotherapy or radiation more effective, the researchers say. The key protein is called Mec1 in yeast and ATR in humans. The video shows two Mec1 molecules bound together (one is in color on the left; the other is gray on the right). The side in color shows how the protein moves to switch between active and inactive states.
Video by Luke Yates
See here for a news release about this research: https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/making-cancer-cells-more-susceptible-to-dying/
