Figure 3.

The differential effect of DNA damaging agents in cancer and normal cells. HDAC inhibitors are known to cause DSBs through chromatin remodeling and oxidative damage due to ROS generation. Normal cells counteract this by check point activation leading to cell cycle arrest; anti-oxidant mechanisms and effective DNA repair whereas cancer cells known to be defective in some of these mechanisms, for e.g. check point kinases and repair genes, fail to repair the DNA damage leading to cell death.