Cancer testis antigens or genes (CTA, CTG) are predominantly expressed in adult testes while silenced in most or all somatic tissues with sporadic expression in many human cancers. Concerted misexpression of numerous CTA/CTGs is rarely observed. This finding argues against the germ cell theory of cancer. A surprising number of CTA/CTGs are involved in meiotic chromosome metabolism and specifically in meiotic recombination. Recent discoveries with a group of CTGs established that their misexpression in somatic cells results in genomic instability by interfering with homologous recombination (HR), a DNA repair pathway for complex DNA damage such as DNA double-stranded breaks, interstrand crosslinks, and single-stranded DNA gaps. HR-deficient tumors have specific vulnerabilities and show synthetic lethality with inhibition of polyADP-ribose polymerase, opening the possibility that expression of CTA/CTGs that result in an HR-defect could be used as an additional biomarker for HR status. Here, we review the repertoire of CTA/CTGs focusing on a cohort that functions in meiotic chromosome metabolism by interrogating relevant cancer databases and discussing recent discoveries.

癌症睾丸抗原或基因（CTA、CTG）主要在成人睾丸中表达，而在大多数或所有体细胞组织中沉默，在许多人类癌症中有零星表达。很少观察到大量 CTA/CTG 的协同错误表达。这一发现反驳了癌症的生殖细胞理论。数量惊人的 CTA/CTG 参与减数分裂染色体代谢，特别是减数分裂重组。最近对一组 CTG 的发现证实，它们在体细胞中的错误表达通过干扰同源重组 (HR) 导致基因组不稳定，HR 是复杂 DNA 损伤的 DNA 修复途径，例如 DNA 双链断裂、链间交联和单链断裂DNA 缺口。HR 缺陷型肿瘤具有特定的脆弱性，并显示出抑制聚 ADP 核糖聚合酶的合成致死性，这开启了导致 HR 缺陷的 CTA/CTG 表达可用作 HR 状态的额外生物标志物的可能性。在这里，我们通过查询相关癌症数据库和讨论最近的发现，回顾了 CTA/CTG 的全部内容，重点关注在减数分裂染色体代谢中起作用的队列。