A lecturer at the College of Pharmacy, Assistant Professor Dr. Zainab Adnan Hatem, was able to publish a scientific research with a British research team from the University of Newcastle in one of the most important cancer research journals, Cancers, which is located within the first quarter of the Scopus Q1 container, and has an impact factor of 6.575 and h. index 111 .
The research team published research that is the first of its kind to discover a new relationship that may give hope to prostate cancer patients who are refractory to treatment. The research was entitled:
CDC20 Is Regulated by the Histone Methyltransferase, KMT5A, in Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer
KMT5A methyltransferase is known as an oncogenic factor in prostate cancer but the mechanisms underlying its oncogenic properties are not well understood. This study revealed the genes and cellular pathways regulated by KMT5A in prostate cancer to better understand whether therapeutic targeting is viable.
The study focused on the cell cycle protein, CDC20, and revealed that it is a gene regulated by the KMT5A enzyme through two mechanisms: the first through methylation of H4K20 within the CDC20 promoter to enhance CDC20 transcription, and the second through inhibition of p53 through direct methylation to release its repression of CDC20 transcription. Furthermore, the study was able to demonstrate that KMT5A and CDC20 are positively correlated in clinical samples of prostate cancer. Given the roles that KMT5A and CDC20 play in regulating the cell cycle and DNA repair processes, the study suggested that targeting KMT5A methylation activity would provide therapeutic benefits for conditions in which the expression of these two oncogenic proteins is very high.
News link
https://qu.edu.iq/ph/?p=8431