The Relationship Between Cul4 and Cancer

It is clear that genomic instability can cause various types of cancer. According to a researcher at the Mayo Clinic, “cancer cells may have evolved a mechanism to disrupt proper nucleosome assembly” affecting a genome’s stability. Improper assembly will ultimately lead to the formation of tumors. The mechanism that is causing this improper assembly involves the use of a protein called Cul4; Cul4  is known to work closely with histones. However, the extent of this relationship is unclear.Thus, the Mayo Clinic is trying to observe the mechanism at a biological level. The reason for this is that whether or not genes will become active depends on how tightly these histone proteins are able to wind DNA into nucleosomes. Furthermore, Cul4 has been discovered to be altered in various forms of cancer: breast cancer, squamous cell carcinomas, adrenocortical carcinomas, and malignant mesotheliomas.  As it turns out, Cul4 “modifies the chemical entities on the surface of the histones, weakening the interaction between them and the histone chaperones.” This lead to the discovery that Cul4 is directly involved with nucleosome assembly. The discovery will hopefully lead to a better understanding of genome stability and help towards providing future cancer treatment. 

Nucleosome