1. Solid tumours hijack the histone variant network
- Author
-
Dan Filipescu, Emily Bernstein, and Flávia G. Ghiraldini
- Subjects
General Mathematics ,Cellular homeostasis ,Article ,Pathogenesis ,Histones ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Transcription (biology) ,Neoplasms ,medicine ,Humans ,Histone Chaperones ,Epigenetics ,Molecular Targeted Therapy ,biology ,Applied Mathematics ,DNA replication ,Cancer ,medicine.disease ,Chromatin ,Cell biology ,Histone ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,Cancer cell ,Mutation ,biology.protein - Abstract
Cancer is a complex disease characterized by loss of cellular homeostasis through genetic and epigenetic alterations. Emerging evidence highlights a role for histone variants and their dedicated chaperones in cancer initiation and progression. Histone variants are involved in processes as diverse as maintenance of genome integrity, nuclear architecture and cell identity. On a molecular level, histone variants add a layer of complexity to the dynamic regulation of transcription, DNA replication and repair, and mitotic chromosome segregation. Because these functions are critical to ensure normal proliferation and maintenance of cellular fate, cancer cells are defined by their capacity to subvert them. Hijacking histone variants and their chaperones is emerging as a common means to disrupt homeostasis across a wide range of cancers, particularly solid tumours. Here we discuss histone variants and histone chaperones as tumour-promoting or tumour-suppressive players in the pathogenesis of cancer.
- Published
- 2020