Background: Fanconi anemia (FA) is a rare autosomal recessive syndrome characterized by developmental abnormalities, progressive bone marrow failure, and predisposition to cancer. The key FA protein FANCD2 crosstalks with members of DNA damage and repair pathways that also play a role at telomeres. Therefore, we investigated whether FANCD2 has a similar involvement at telomeres.
Results: We reveal that FANCD2 may perform a novel function separate to the FANCD2/BRCA pathway. This function includes FANCD2 interaction with one of the telomere components, the PARP family member tankyrase-1. Moreover, FANCD2 inhibits tankyrase-1 activity in vitro. In turn, FANCD2 deficiency increases the polyADP-ribosylation of telomere binding factor TRF1.
Conclusions: FANCD2 binding and inhibiting tankyrase-1PARsylation at telomeres may provide an additional step within the FA pathway for the regulation of genomic integrity.