Enhancer

PRC2

Cancer

Gene expression

Gene

Transcription (linguistics)

Psychological repression

Biology

Transcription factor

Genetics

Linguistics

Histone

Philosophy

EZH2

Cancer research

Nature reviews. Cancer

In this Opinion article, the authors propose that the function of Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) in maintaining, rather than specifying, transcriptional repression can explain its seemingly contradictory roles in cancer. Enhancer of zeste homologue 2 (EZH2), the catalytic subunit of Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2), has attracted broad research attention in the past few years because of its involvement in the development and maintenance of many types of cancer and the use of specific EZH2 inhibitors in clinical trials. Several observations show that PRC2 can have both oncogenic and tumour-suppressive functions. We propose that these apparently opposing roles of PRC2 in cancer are a consequence of the molecular function of the complex in maintaining, rather than specifying, the transcriptional repression state of its several thousand target genes.

Maintaining cell identity: PRC2-mediated regulation of transcription and cancer