Abstract

Summary Attenuated DNA repair leads to genomic instability and tumorigenesis. BRCA1/BARD1 are the best-known tumor suppressors that promote homology recombination (HR) and arrest cell cycle. However, it remains ambiguous whether and how their E3 ligase activity regulates HR. Here, we demonstrate that upon genotoxic stress, BRCA1 together with BARD1 catalyzes the K48 polyubiquitination on LARP7, a 7SK RNA binding protein known to control RNAPII pausing, and thereby degrades it through the 26S ubiquitin-proteasome pathway. Depleting LARP7 suppresses the expression of CDK1 complex, arrests the cell at the G2/M DNA damage checkpoint, and reduces BRCA2 phosphorylation, which thereby facilitates RAD51 recruitment to damaged DNA to enhance HR. Importantly, LARP7 depletion observed in breast cancer patients leads to chemoradiotherapy resistance both in vitro and in vivo. Altogether, this study unveils a mechanism by which BRCA1/BARD1 control HR and cell cycle, and highlights LARP7 as a potential target for cancer prevention and therapy.