RPA, RFWD3 and BRCA2 at stalled forks: a balancing act.

We recently identified E3 ligase RFWD3 as a modulator of stalled fork stability in BRCA2-deficient cells. We also show that BRCA1 might function upstream of BRCA2 during fork repair and that blocking fork degradation by depleting MRE11 does not guarantee fork repair. These findings provide new insights into the workings of BRCA1 and BRCA2 in the stalled fork repair pathway.