[Folding@home] BRCA1 in breast cancer
Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2025 10:10 am
About 2,300,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. Of these, approximately 70,000 have mutations in the breast cancer gene 1 (BRCA1), which encodes the BRCA1 protein.
BRCA1 plays a critical role in DNA damage repair. People with mutations in bRCA1 are less able to repair damage in their DNA, leading to an increased risk of cancer.
Therapeutics that enhance BRCA1 function would be a valuable means to counteract deleterious mutations. However, its unclear how to achieve this goal.
In a recent preprint, Bhattacharjee et al. use simulations on Folding@home to understand how mutations alter BRCA1 function, revealing a previously unknown role for protein dynamics.
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