Proteomic snapshot of breast cancer cell cycle: G1/S transition point

When DNA damage occurs in normal cells, the cell development/division cycle will stop at the next of several checkpoints that occur throughout normal progression.  The cell will stay at that point until the damage can be repaired.  If the damage can't be repaired the cell will never leave that checkpoint and won't divide again.  If the damage is extreme, the cell may voluntarily self-destruct through the process of apoptosis.  Cancer cells, however, will just shoot through these checkpoints and keep dividing regardless of the amount of DNA damage present.
How and why a cancer cell does this is the focus of this new paper from Milagros Tenja and (a member of my thesis committee) Iulia M. Lazar.  In this study they look at the breast cancer cell line MCF-7 and perform label free quan using spectral counting to identify pathways that are involved in enriched nuclear and mitochondrial fractions.  The paper is a featured article of this month's Proteomics, so you should check it out.  Go Hokies!