Therapeutic potential of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitor AG014699 in human cancers with mutated or methylated BRCA1 or BRCA2.

Background: Mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 (BRCA1/2), components of the homologous recombination DNA repair (HRR) pathway, are associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancers. Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors are selectively cytotoxic to animal cells with defective HRR, but results in human cancer cells have been contradictory. We undertook, to our knowledge, the first comprehensive in vitro and in vivo investigations of the antitumor activity of the PARP inhibitor AG014699 in human cancer cells carrying mutated or epigenetically silenced BRCA1/2.