BRCT phosphoprotein recognition, but not E3 ligase activity, is essential for BRCA1 tumor suppression

It has been recognized that BRCA1, in the form of the BRCA1/BARD1 heterodimer, acting as an ubiquitin E3 ligase offered a possible mechanism to explain its pleiotrophic nature of BRCA1 activity. Our observation that mice lacking BRCA1 enzymatic activity are viable apart from male sterility was unexpected. Our results suggest that the E3 ligase activity of BRCA1 is largely dispensable for normal development and is not essential for all BRCA1 functions. Thus, many of the known and unknown functions of BRCA1 are likely to be mediated independent of its ability to catalyze ubiquitination. The genome copy number patterns were studied on the mice tumors that lacks E3 ubiqitin ligase activity of BRCA1 and were compared to copy number profile of mice lacking p53 and both brca1 and p53. Array CGH was performed using Agilent mouse CGH microarray 244K kit. Genomic DNA isolated from tumor tissue and its corresponding mouse tail were labelled with two different dyes and hybridized simultaneously on to microarray slides to perform comparitive genomic hybridization.