Speaker
Sherine Xueqin Sun, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Mills Laboratory
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY
Seminar Abstract:
Cancer is a disease caused by aberrant gene expression. Epigenetic regulation via chromatin remodeling is essential for proper and timely transcriptional programs. Accumulating evidence suggests that chromatin remodeling plays the driving role in cancer development by switching on and off oncogenic and tumor suppressive transcriptional programs, respectively. For instance, BRD8-driven EP400 complex remodels chromatin accessibility to cripple p53-mediated tumor suppression network in p53 wildtype glioblastoma. On the other hand, Chd5-driven NuRD chromatin remodeling complex governs Myc level in neural stem cells and Chd5 loss unshackles Myc expression and promotes gliomagenesis. Due to the reversible nature of epigenetic processes, epigenetic regulators are promising therapeutic candidates, as evidenced by tremendous clinical success in using epigenetic inhibitors. Therefore, the epigenetic mechanisms elucidated above not only shed light on the underpinnings of gliomagenesis, but also provide potential opportunities of therapeutic interventions for glioblastoma.