BACKGROUND Epigenetic silencing is a common mechanism to inactivate tumor suppressor genes during carcinogenesis. Enhancer of Zeste 2 (EZH2) is the histone methyltransferase subunit in polycomb repressive complex 2 which mediates transcriptional repression through histone methylation. EZH2 overexpression has been linked to aggressive phenotypes of certain cancers. However, the mechanism that EZ...

EZH2 is a component of the epigenetic regulator PRC2 that suppresses gene expression. Elevated expression of EZH2 is common in human cancers and is associated with tumor progression and poor prognosis. In this study, we show that EZH2 elevation is associated with epigenetic modifications of Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), an oncogenic virus that promotes the development of Kaposi ...

PURPOSE Enhancer of zeste homologue 2 (EZH2), a histone methyltransferase, plays a key role in transcriptional repression through chromatin remodeling. Our objectives were to determine the expression pattern of EZH2 and to assess the anticancer effect of EZH2 depletion in pancreatic cancer cells. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Immunohistochemistry and cytosolic/nuclear fractionation were done to determi...

The polycomb group protein enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) is linked to aggressive prostate cancer and could be an appropriate target in specific immunotherapy. In this study, we attempted to identify EZH2-derived peptides that have the potential to generate cancer-reactive cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) in human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A2+ prostate cancer patients. Twelve EZH2-derived pepti...

Enhancer of zeste homologue 2 (Ezh2) is essential for the development of the early mouse preimplantation embryo. Loss of Ezh2 results in embryonic lethality in mice. Ezh2-deficient embryos display impaired outgrowth potential, defective establishment of Ezh2-null embryonic stem (ES) cells and adherence and differentiation of the trophoblast layer into giant cells. We investigated if Ezh2 contro...

Osteosarcoma is a primary malignant bone tumor that has a poor prognosis due to local recurrence, metastasis, and chemotherapy resistance. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop novel potential therapeutic targets for osteosarcoma. Enhancer of zeste homologue 2 (EZH2) is a member of the polycomb group of proteins, which has important functions in epigenetic silencing and cell cycle regul...

EZH2, a catalytic component of the polycomb repressive complex 2, trimethylates histone H3 at lysine 27 (H3K27) to repress the transcription of target genes. Although EZH2 is overexpressed in various cancers, including some hematologic malignancies, the role of EZH2 in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has yet to be examined in vivo. In the present study, we transformed granulocyte macrophage progen...

Increased activity of the epigenetic modifier EZH2 has been associated with different cancers. However, evidence for a functional role of EZH2 in tumorigenesis in vivo remains poor, in particular in metastasizing solid cancers. Here we reveal central roles of EZH2 in promoting growth and metastasis of cutaneous melanoma. In a melanoma mouse model, conditional Ezh2 ablation as much as treatment ...

PURPOSE The Polycomb group gene, EZH2, functions as a transcriptional repressor involved in gene silencing. Amplification of EZH2 has been reported in several malignancies, including prostate, breast, and lymphoma. We evaluated EZH2 mRNA and protein expression in bladder specimens from patients and the EZH2 mRNA expression in five bladder cancer cell lines. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN EZH2 mRNA expre...

BACKGROUND The polycomb group protein Ezh2 is an epigenetic repressor of transcription originally found to prevent untimely differentiation of pluripotent embryonic stem cells. We previously demonstrated that Ezh2 is also expressed in multipotent neural stem cells (NSCs). We showed that Ezh2 expression is downregulated during NSC differentiation into astrocytes or neurons. However, high levels ...