In an initial phase, we screened for interactors of 12 proteins, which included the products of the FANCJ and FANCN genes (BRIP1 and PALB2, respectively) [9-11,15], CHEK2 as linked to BrCa risk [40], and known molecular and/or functional interactors of FA/BrCa proteins (ATR, BLM, ERCC1, ERCC4, H2AFX, RAD51, TOP3A, TOPBP1 and USP1; see Additional file 1). This evidence concerns the gene ERCC1 and invasive breast carcinoma.