Researchers Differentiation and Cancer Programme of the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona (CRG) have shown, in an article that took the cover of a recent issue of Cancer Cell, the connections between DNA methylation mechanisms and the complex Polycomb protein, both involvedyear in Nature that the two mechanisms mentioned above could be interconnected with each other biochemically regulate genes together. Now what we have done is to check in tumor cells of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia. The work has shown that two mechanisms are not only interconnected, but one reinforces the other and, moreover, one needs the other. This is an important contribution for future drug therapy, since it assumes that if you can correct the activity of one of the two mechanisms regulated erroneously reverse the actions of another.

Specifically, the work has focused on examining the response of tumor cells to the removal of SUZ12, a key component of Polycomb complex. In this case we have observed the induction of DNA demethylation in tumor cells. This connection between Polycomb and DNA methylation opens the door to the description of new compounds for the treatment of these leukemias and the group of Di Croce, the CRG, and is looking for a Polycomb protein inhibitor could be effective .