Ribonucleotides and the Inflammatory Response

Role of ADAR1 in interferon-activated cancer cells. Our identification of the RNA adenosine deaminase gene ADAR1 as a genetic dependency in some lung cancer cell lines led to the finding that an elevated interferon gene expression signature is a biomarker for the vulnerability of cancer cells to ADAR1 loss (Gannon, et al., 2018). We are working to understand the relationship between elevated interferon gene expression and ADAR1 deletion, and how ADAR1 can be exploited as a therapeutic target in cells expressing high levels of interferon-stimulated genes.