Biologically precise enhancer licensing by lineage-determining transcription factors enables activation of transcripts appropriate to biological demand and prevents deleterious gene activation. This essential process is challenged by the millions of matches to most transcription factor binding motifs present in many eukaryotic genomes, leading to questions about how transcription factors achieve the exquisite specificity required. The importance of chromatin remodeling factors to enhancer activation is highlighted by their frequent mutation in developmental disorders and in cancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiologically precise enhancer licensing by lineage-determining transcription factors enables activation of transcripts appropriate to biological demand and prevents deleterious gene activation. This essential process is challenged by the millions of matches to most transcription factor binding motifs present in many eukaryotic genomes, leading to questions about how transcription factors achieve the exquisite specificity required. The importance of chromatin remodeling factors to enhancer activation is highlighted by their frequent mutation in developmental disorders and in cancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGATA3 is known to be one of the most frequently mutated genes in breast cancer. More than 10% of breast tumors carry mutations in this gene. However, the functional consequence of GATA3 mutations is still largely unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClin Epigenetics
August 2020
Background: The number of tumor suppressor genes for which germline mutations have been linked to cancer risk is steadily increasing. However, while recent reports have linked constitutional normal tissue promoter methylation of BRCA1 and MLH1 to ovarian and colon cancer risk, the role of epigenetic alterations as cancer risk factors remains largely unknown, presenting an important area for future research. Currently, we lack fast and sensitive methods for assessment of promoter methylation status across known tumor suppressor genes.
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