Talk:Histone deacetylase

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[edit] HDAC inhibitors for cancer treatment?

I don't understand the following paragraph:

HDAC inhibitors are being studied as a treatment for cancer, because HDACs are involved in the pathway by which the retinoblastoma protein (pRb) suppresses cell proliferation. The pRb protein is part of a complex which attracts HDACs to the chromatin so that it will deacetylate histones.

HDAC's decrease DNA availability, so it makes sense that pRb attracts HDACs in order to suppress cell proliferation. I assume that "suppressing cell proliferation" means "preventing cancer". So in simple terms: lots of HDAC prevents cancer. Then it doesn't make sense to treat cancer by inhibiting HDAC. AxelBoldt 19:34, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

DNA regulation is a set of wheels within wheels. I would guess that either:

1. It's written wrong, or
2. The inhibition in question is targeted at the HDACs controlling transcription of oncogenes.

I'll run a pubmed search momentarily but I don't expect to find an easy answer. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 19:40, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I was wrong, it is an easy answer. Inhibiting misregulated HDACs allows tumor-supressor genes to function properly, killing or slowing the cancer. I'll add a reference momentarily. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 19:47, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

That makes perfect sense, but then the "because" in the quoted paragraph above is incorrect. AxelBoldt 20:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Might be a different study? There's a lot of them out there, I just grabbed what I could find. I'll strike the word for the time being. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 20:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I realized in retrospect that I was the author of that confusing prose! oops! It's a fair bet I wrote it with class notes handy last semester sometime and promptly forgot the specifics... -- stillnotelf is invisible 03:06, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Light editing

I edited the first paragraph to increase clarity. I made some other changes for increased clarity as well. In particular, the words "upregulate" and "downregulate" should be avoided unless they are used in their narrow specific sense. They should not be used as synonyms for "increase" "decrease," "inhibit" and the like. Eperotao 18:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)