Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Dec;15(1):28-37.
doi: 10.1080/19336934.2020.1863124.

Drosophila melanogaster: a fruitful model for oncohistones

Amel Chaouch  1 , Paul Lasko  1   2
Affiliations

Drosophila melanogaster: a fruitful model for oncohistones

Amel Chaouch et al. Fly (Austin). 2021 Dec.

Abstract

Drosophila melanogaster has proven to be a powerful genetic model to study human disease. Approximately 75% of human disease-associated genes have homologs in the fruit fly and regulatory pathways are highly conserved in Drosophila compared to humans. Drosophila is an established model organism for the study of genetics and developmental biology related to human disease and has also made a great contribution to epigenetic research. Many key factors that regulate chromatin condensation through effects on histone post-translational modifications were first discovered in genetic screens in Drosophila. Recently, the importance of chromatin regulators in cancer progression has been uncovered, leading to a rapid expansion in the knowledge on how perturbations of chromatin can result in the pathogenesis of human cancer. In this review, we provide examples of how Drosophila melanogaster has contributed to better understanding the detrimental effects of mutant forms of histones, called 'oncohistones', that are found in different human tumours.

Keywords: Oncohistones; PcG proteins; chromatin; epigenetics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Histone H3 and H3.3 are conserved in humans and flies
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Oncogenic mutations in Histone H3.3 affect its post-translational modification
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Villegas SN. One hundred years of Drosophila cancer research: no longer in solitude. DMM Dis Model Mech. 2019;12:dmm039032. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gonzalez C. Drosophila melanogaster: a model and a tool to investigate malignancy and identify new therapeutics. Nat Rev Cancer. 2013;13:172–183. - PubMed
    1. Stark MB. An hereditary tumor in the fruit fly drosophila. J Cancer Res. 1918;3:279–301.
    1. Gateff E. The genetics and epigenetics of neoplasms in Drosophila. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 1978;53:123–168. - PubMed
    1. You JS, Jones PA. Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics: two Sides of the Same Coin? Cancer Cell. 2012;22(1):9–20. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources