NIH Public Access Author Manuscript Curr Cancer Drug Targets
NIH Public Access Author Manuscript Curr Cancer Drug Targets. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2013 July 06. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptPublished NIH-PA Author Manuscript in final edited NIH-PA Author Manuscript form as: Curr Cancer Drug Targets. 2013 June 10; 13(5): 558–579. Histone Lysine-Specific Methyltransferases and Demethylases in Carcinogenesis: New Targets for Cancer Therapy and Prevention Xuejiao Tian1,2,3, Saiyang Zhang4, Hong-Min Liu4, Yan-Bing Zhang4, Christopher A Blair1,2, Dan Mercola5, Paolo Sassone-Corsi6, and Xiaolin Zi1,2,3,* 1Department of Urology, University of California, Irvine, Orange, CA 92868, USA 2Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Orange, CA 92868, USA 3Department of Pharmacology, University of California, Irvine, Orange, CA 92868, USA 4School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, No.100, Science Avenue, Zhengzhou 450001, Henan, China 5Department of Pathology and Laboratory medicine, University of California, Irvine, Orange, CA 92868, USA 6Department of Biological Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, Orange, CA 92868, USA Abstract Aberrant histone lysine methylation that is controlled by histone lysine methyltransferases (KMTs) and demethylases (KDMs) plays significant roles in carcinogenesis. Infections by tumor viruses or parasites and exposures to chemical carcinogens can modify the process of histone lysine methylation. Many KMTs and KDMs contribute to malignant transformation by regulating the expression of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT), forming a fused gene, interacting with proto-oncogenes or being up-regulated in cancer cells. In addition, histone lysine methylation participates in tumor suppressor gene inactivation during the early stages of carcinogenesis by regulating DNA methylation and/or by other DNA methylation independent mechanisms.
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