Histone lysine demethylases and their functions in cancer

Histone lysine demethylases (KDMs) are enzymes that remove the methylation marks on lysines in nucleosomes' histone tails. These changes in methylation marks regulate gene transcription during both development and malignant transformation. Depending on which lysine residue is targeted, the effe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of cancer 2021-05, Vol.148 (10), p.2375-2388
Main Authors: Sterling, Jayden, Menezes, Sharleen V., Abbassi, Ramzi H., Munoz, Lenka
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cancer
DNA methylation
drug resistance
Drug tolerance
Epigenetics
histone lysine demethylase
histone methylation
Histones
Lysine
Medical research
Nonhistone proteins
Nucleosomes
Stem cells
Tumors
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Summary:Histone lysine demethylases (KDMs) are enzymes that remove the methylation marks on lysines in nucleosomes' histone tails. These changes in methylation marks regulate gene transcription during both development and malignant transformation. Depending on which lysine residue is targeted, the effect of a given KDM on gene transcription can be either activating or repressing, and KDMs can regulate the expression of both oncogenes and tumour suppressors. Thus, the functions of KDMs can be regarded as both oncogenic and tumour suppressive, contingent on cell context and the enzyme isoform. Finally, KDMs also demethylate nonhistone proteins and have a variety of demethylase‐independent functions. These epigenetic and other mechanisms that KDMs control make them important regulators of malignant tumours. Here, we present an overview of eight KDM subfamilies, their most‐studied lysine targets and selected recent data on their roles in cancer stem cells, tumour aggressiveness and drug tolerance.
ISSN:0020-7136
1097-0215
DOI:10.1002/ijc.33375