{"id":2947,"date":"2011-09-14T13:08:03","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T03:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/?p=2947"},"modified":"2012-03-21T09:32:17","modified_gmt":"2012-03-20T22:32:17","slug":"enzyme-promotes-aggressive-breast-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/science\/enzyme-promotes-aggressive-breast-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Enzyme promotes aggressive breast cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/p>\n

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women globally. Image: Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Understanding the role of EZH2 enzymes in promoting breast cancer could lead to more effective treatments.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Histone methyltransferase EZH2 is an enzyme found in humans, encoded by the EZH2 gene, and has linked to the development of aggressive breast cancers. Previous studies suggest that over-expression of the enzyme promotes cancer by inhibiting the function of tumour suppressors, which would normally act as brakes and stop tumour growth.<\/p>\n

However, EZH2 is also able to promote cancer by activating genes linked to estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer, according to scientists from the Genome Institute of Singapore<\/a> (GIS) and the National University of Singapore<\/a>. This particular subset of breast cancers tend to be more agressive and\u00a0are unresponsive to current forms of treatment.<\/p>\n

“This work suggests that EZH2 may confer its oncogenic role in cancer not just through its gene silencing function, but… also through its gene activation function,”\u009d said Dr Yu Qiang from GIS, lead author of the study published in Molecular Cell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The scientists found that EZH2 activates genes involved in the well-known cancer pathway NF-kB, which is associated with estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer.\u00a0“These genes, including IL6 and IL8, are inflammatory molecules with important known roles in breast cancer progression and cancer stem cell self-renewal,”\u009d Dr Yu said.<\/p>\n

They also discovered that EZH2 did not require enzyme activity to activate the genes. “We found that in addition to the gene repression function, EZH2 also can activate gene expression and this function does not seem to require its histone methyltransferase activity.”\u009d<\/p>\n

The study has important implications for developing treatments for aggressive breast cancers. Blocking EZH2 methyltransferase activity would restore the function of the tumour suppressors, so the inhibitors currently being developed target EZH2’s enzymatic activity.<\/p>\n

But the results from this study suggest that the oncogenic role of EZH2 is dependent on cell context and therefore may not always be dependent on enzymatic activity. “(This study) has therapeutic implication as it warns that small molecule drugs that target histone methyltransferase activity of EZH2 may not work for this function of EZH2,”\u009d Dr Yu said.<\/p>\n

“This study is one example of how we are moving forward in unlocking the mysteries behind what controls the aggressiveness of breast cancer cells.”\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Understanding the role of EZH2 enzymes in promoting breast cancer could lead to more effective treatments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-science"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2947"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2952,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2947\/revisions\/2952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}