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.

摘要

果蝇已被证明是研究人类疾病的强大遗传模型。与人类相比，在果蝇中约有75％的人类疾病相关基因具有果蝇同源物，并且调节途径在果蝇中高度保守。果蝇是建立模型的有机体，用于研究与人类疾病有关的遗传学和发育生物学，也为表观遗传学研究做出了巨大贡献。在果蝇的遗传筛选中首次发现了许多通过影响组蛋白翻译后修饰来调节染色质浓缩的关键因素。。最近，人们已经发现了染色质调节剂在癌症进展中的重要性，从而导致关于染色质微扰如何导致人类癌症发病机理的知识迅速扩展。在这篇综述中，我们提供了果蝇果蝇如何有助于更好地理解在不同人类肿瘤中发现的称为“癌蛋白”的突变组蛋白突变形式的有害作用的示例。