Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 13, 2025

Integration of Bioinformatics Approaches and Experimental Validations to Understand the Role of Notch Signaling in Ovarian Cancer
Published on: January 12, 2020
Cancer and meiotic gene expression: Two sides of the same coin?
Ieng Fong Sou1, Geert Hamer2, Wee-Wei Tee3
1Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom; Chromatin Dynamics and Disease Epigenetics Group, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, Singapore.
Abstract:
Meiosis increases genetic diversity in offspring by generating genetically unique haploid gametes with reshuffled chromosomes. This process requires a specialized set of meiotic proteins, which facilitate chromosome recombination and segregation. However, re-expression of meiotic proteins in mitosis can have catastrophic oncogenic consequences and aberrant expression of meiotic proteins is a common occurrence in human tumors. Mechanistically, re-activation of meiotic genes in cancer promotes oncogenesis likely because cancers-conversely to healthy mitosis-are fueled by genetic instability which promotes tumor evolution, and evasion of immune response and treatment pressure. In this review, we explore similarities between meiotic and cancer cells with a particular focus on the oncogenic activation of meiotic genes in cancer. We emphasize the role of histones and their modifications, DNA methylation, genome organization, R-loops and the availability of distal enhancers.
Related Concept Videos
Epigenetic Regulation
Meiosis I
Prophase I is the most extended and complex step of meiosis I characterized by synapsis, chromosome pairing, and recombination of the homologous chromosomes. This process is facilitated by a proteinaceous structure called the...
Mouse Models of Cancer Study
The development of transgenic, knockout, and knock-in mice has led to an exponential increase in their use as model organisms in research,...
Cancer-Critical Genes II: Tumor Suppressor Genes
When the function of certain critical genes, especially those involved in cell cycle regulation and cell growth signaling cascades, gets disrupted, it upsets the cell cycle progression. Such cells with unchecked cell cycles start proliferating uncontrollably and eventually develop into tumors.
Such genes that act...
Meiosis II
The timing and cell division patterns of meiosis differ between males and females. In male meiosis, the centrosomes are part of the formation of the meiotic spindle. However, in oocytes, including that of humans, Drosophila,...
Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
Somatic...

