Aromatic amines are among the most notorious
environmental chemicals that are implicated in the etiology of human
cancers. Adduct formation has been confirmed in human tissues and is
believed to induce cancer initiation. Hence it is imperative to elucidate
how these lesions are repaired and replicated in vivo. The key molecular
players such as adduct structures and proteins producing adverse outcomes
must be characterized and understood in order to devise prevention and
risk assessment strategies. We hypothesize that adduct-induced
conformational change is important for repair efficiency and fidelity of
replication. We will use various biophysical techniques to investigate
structure function relationships of DNA-adducts in simulated cellular
environments.
