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Updated: Jun 27, 2026

Visualizing and Quantifying Endonuclease-Based Site-Specific DNA Damage
Published on: August 21, 2021
DNA repair pathways as targets for cancer therapy
Thomas Helleday1, Eva Petermann, Cecilia Lundin
1Radiation Oncology & Biology, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus Research Building, off Roosevelt Drive, Headington, Oxford, OX3 7DQ, UK. thomas.helleday@rob.ox.ac.uk
Abstract:
DNA repair pathways can enable tumour cells to survive DNA damage that is induced by chemotherapeutic treatments; therefore, inhibitors of specific DNA repair pathways might prove efficacious when used in combination with DNA-damaging chemotherapeutic drugs. In addition, alterations in DNA repair pathways that arise during tumour development can make some cancer cells reliant on a reduced set of DNA repair pathways for survival. There is evidence that drugs that inhibit one of these pathways in such tumours could prove useful as single-agent therapies, with the potential advantage that this approach could be selective for tumour cells and have fewer side effects.
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