Countering an Epigenetic Factor May Subdue Pancreatic Cancer

A pancreatic cancer cell can alter its identity and become more aggressive—more motile, more invasive, more resistant to chemotherapy, and more imbued with “stemness.” Such a profound shift in identity, reasoned Genentech researchers, might occur at the epigenetic level, where regulatory molecules may control the expression of many different genes. These researchers screened hundreds of epigenetic factors and identified one, a histone methyltransferase called SUV420H2, that see