{"title":"Cancer and meiotic gene expression: Two sides of the same coin?","authors":"Ieng Fong Sou, Geert Hamer, Wee-Wei Tee, Gerben Vader, Urszula Lucja McClurg","doi":"10.1016/bs.ctdb.2022.06.002","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Meiosis increases genetic diversity in offspring by generating genetically unique haploid gametes with reshuffled chromosomes. This process requires a specialized set of meiotic proteins, which facilitate chromosome recombination and segregation. However, re-expression of meiotic proteins in mitosis can have catastrophic oncogenic consequences and aberrant expression of meiotic proteins is a common occurrence in human tumors. Mechanistically, re-activation of meiotic genes in cancer promotes oncogenesis likely because cancers-conversely to healthy mitosis-are fueled by genetic instability which promotes tumor evolution, and evasion of immune response and treatment pressure. In this review, we explore similarities between meiotic and cancer cells with a particular focus on the oncogenic activation of meiotic genes in cancer. We emphasize the role of histones and their modifications, DNA methylation, genome organization, R-loops and the availability of distal enhancers.</p>","PeriodicalId":55191,"journal":{"name":"Current Topics in Developmental Biology","volume":"151 ","pages":"43-68"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Current Topics in Developmental Biology","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.ctdb.2022.06.002","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2022/7/29 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Meiosis increases genetic diversity in offspring by generating genetically unique haploid gametes with reshuffled chromosomes. This process requires a specialized set of meiotic proteins, which facilitate chromosome recombination and segregation. However, re-expression of meiotic proteins in mitosis can have catastrophic oncogenic consequences and aberrant expression of meiotic proteins is a common occurrence in human tumors. Mechanistically, re-activation of meiotic genes in cancer promotes oncogenesis likely because cancers-conversely to healthy mitosis-are fueled by genetic instability which promotes tumor evolution, and evasion of immune response and treatment pressure. In this review, we explore similarities between meiotic and cancer cells with a particular focus on the oncogenic activation of meiotic genes in cancer. We emphasize the role of histones and their modifications, DNA methylation, genome organization, R-loops and the availability of distal enhancers.