The Fanconi Anemia Pathway and Fertility

Fanconi anemia (FA) is a life-threatening syndrome characterized by bone marrow failure and cancer predispositions. The past two decades have seen an explosion of data in the FA field, both in humans and other organisms, following the cloning of 22 FA genes. A common but notably understudied clinical feature of the disease is the reduced fertility of individuals with FA. This review focuses on the known causes of reduced fertility in FA, and integrates them with the emerging role of the FA pathway in double-strand break (DSB) repair at meiosis in a variety of organisms, as well as providing future directions for research and diagnostics.