2. Academic Validation
  3. The emerging roles of lysine-specific demethylase 4A in cancer: Implications in tumorigenesis and therapeutic opportunities

The emerging roles of lysine-specific demethylase 4A in cancer: Implications in tumorigenesis and therapeutic opportunities

  • Genes Dis. 2023 Mar 23;11(2):645-663. doi: 10.1016/j.gendis.2022.12.020.
Guanjun Yang 1 2 3,  Changyun Li 1 2 3,  Fan Tao 1 2 3,  Yanjun Liu 1 2 3,  Minghui Zhu 1 2 3,  Yu Du 1 2 3,  Chenjie Fei 1 2 3,  Qiusheng She 4,  Jiong Chen 1 2 3
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 State Key Laboratory for Managing Biotic and Chemical Threats to the Quality and Safety of Agro-products, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315211, China.
  • 2 Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Marine Sciences, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315211, China.
  • 3 Key Laboratory of Aquacultural Biotechnology Ministry of Education, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315211, China.
  • 4 School of Life Science and Engineering, Henan University of Urban Construction, Pingdingshan, Henan 467044, China.
PMID: 37692513 DOI: 10.1016/j.gendis.2022.12.020
Abstract

Lysine-specific demethylase 4 A (KDM4A, also named JMJD2A, KIA0677, or JHDM3A) is a demethylase that can remove methyl groups from histones H3K9me2/3, H3K36me2/3, and H1.4K26me2/me3. Accumulating evidence suggests that KDM4A is not only involved in body homeostasis (such as cell proliferation, migration and differentiation, and tissue development) but also associated with multiple human diseases, especially cancers. Recently, an increasing number of studies have shown that pharmacological inhibition of KDM4A significantly attenuates tumor progression in vitro and in vivo in a range of solid tumors and acute myeloid leukemia. Although there are several reviews on the roles of the KDM4 subfamily in Cancer development and therapy, all of them only briefly introduce the roles of KDM4A in Cancer without systematically summarizing the specific mechanisms of KDM4A in various physiological and pathological processes, especially in tumorigenesis, which greatly limits advances in the understanding of the roles of KDM4A in a variety of cancers, discovering targeted selective KDM4A inhibitors, and exploring the adaptive profiles of KDM4A antagonists. Herein, we present the structure and functions of KDM4A, simply outline the functions of KDM4A in homeostasis and non-cancer diseases, summarize the role of KDM4A and its distinct target genes in the development of a variety of cancers, systematically classify KDM4A inhibitors, summarize the difficulties encountered in the research of KDM4A and the discovery of related drugs, and provide the corresponding solutions, which would contribute to understanding the recent research trends on KDM4A and advancing the progression of KDM4A as a drug target in Cancer therapy.

Keywords

Cancer therapy; Drug resistance; Histone demethylation; JmjC domain; KDM4A.

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