Research news

Polycomb in the prostate

Jonathan B Weitzman

Genome Biology 2002, 3:spotlight-20021017-01 doi:10.1186/gb-spotlight-20021017-01


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Published:17 October 2002

© 2002 BioMed Central Ltd

Research news

Prostate cancer becomes fatal when associated with metastasis. In the October 10 Nature, Varambally et al. describe a microarray-based analysis of genes whose expression is altered in metastatic prostate cancer (Nature 2002, 419:624-629). They identified 55 genes that were upregulated in metastatic tumors relative to localized ones, and found that the gene encoding the polycomb-group protein Enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) was significantly upregulated in metastatic cells and correlated with cancer progression. Disruption of EZH2 expression by RNAi caused growth inhibition and growth arrest at the G2- to M-phase transition in the cell cycle. Overexpression of EZH2 in cancer cells caused repression of a subset of genes, and this required the EZH2 'SET' domain and endogenous histone deacetylase activity.

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