DNA Packaging Provides a Target for Leukemia (IMAGE)

Boston Children's Hospital

DNA Packaging Provides a Target for Leukemia

Caption

Giving chromosomes their structure and shape, strands of DNA, shown in gray, are coiled around histones, depicted as spheres. In MLL-rearranged ALL, a form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia affecting infants, an enzyme call DOT1L modifies the histones by methylating them in an abnormal way (as indicated in orange), leading to inappropriate activation of cancer-promoting genes. Drugs inhibiting this enzyme could prevent a variety of cancerous changes in cells.

Credit

Eric Smith, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

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