Epigenetic machinery plays an essential role in cell differentiation and maintenance of cell function. Not surprisingly, the corruption of epigenetic mechanisms results in disastrous consequences including oncogenesis.
It has been known for more than two decades that certain cancers upregulate testis-specific factors, known as cancer-testis antigens (CTA). The CTAs were largely considered not to be important for carcinogenesis but mainly viewed as convenient markers for the identification of certain types of cancer.
Our recent work has demonstrated that a testis-specific histone variant, H2A.B, is the first epigenetic CTA factor that is important for the maintenance of Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) carcinogenesis. Moreover, we have mapped and characterised post-translational modifications (PTM) of H2A.B N-terminus and identified their readers and writers. Finally, we have also shown that H2AB PTMs play a key role in H2A.B functional dynamics and epigenetic control of carcinogenic processes in HL. This presentation will discuss these novel findings and their implications.