A tumor suppressive DNA translocase named FANCM

Abstract

FANCM is named after Fanconi anemia (FA) complement group M. The clinical symptoms of FA include congenital abnormalities, pancytopenia, and cancer proneness. However, recent studies reveal that biallelic inactivation of FANCM does not cause the constellation of FA symptoms, but predisposes patients to cancer and infertility. FANCM is a tumor suppressor gene that encodes a conserved and structure-specific DNA translocase. It controls the outcome of homologous recombination and facilitates DNA replication across a variety of natural and chemically induced obstacles. This review details our current understanding of FANCM as a facilitator of the cellular functions of caretaker proteins, including FA, Bloom syndrome, and Ataxia telangiectasia and RAD3-related proteins, which collectively ensure the maintenance of chromosome stability during DNA replication.

Keywords:

• FANCM
• Fanconi anemia
• chromosome instability
• cancer
• replication forks

Acknowledgements

We thank Camilla Frattini, Sara Ovejero, and the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and suggestions on the manuscript. We apologize to any colleagues whose contribution might have been overlooked in this review.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by la fondation ARC pour la recherche sur le cancer, by MSDAVENIR, and by the SIRIC Montpellier Cancer (INCa-DGSO-INSERM [grant Number 6045]).