{"id":240664,"date":"2026-07-11T07:28:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T12:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/this-unusual-epigenetic-modifier-promotes-certain-cancers-but-suppresses-others"},"modified":"2026-07-11T07:28:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T12:28:38","slug":"this-unusual-epigenetic-modifier-promotes-certain-cancers-but-suppresses-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/this-unusual-epigenetic-modifier-promotes-certain-cancers-but-suppresses-others","title":{"rendered":"This unusual epigenetic modifier promotes certain cancers but suppresses others"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/this-unusual-epigenetic-modifier-promotes-certain-cancers-but-suppresses-others2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The epigenetic modifier MLL4 has an unassuming name\u2014the 4, for instance, indicates it\u2019s just one in a family of such modifiers. But MLL4 is quite special: In a specific type of leukemia, it drives disease progression, while in solid tumors, it acts as a suppressor.<\/p>\n<p>The paradoxical nature of MLL4 made it a compelling enigma for Rockefeller University\u2019s Robert Roeder, a pioneer in the field of genetic transcription. Now his Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Rockefeller University has used a combination of biochemistry, genetics and structural biology to find surprising new characteristics of MLL4 that expand our understanding of its range of functions, including its relationship to a tumor-suppressing protein. The findings, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/molecular-cell\/fulltext\/S1097-2765(26)00312-6\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Molecular Cell<\/i>, could illuminate how the MLL4 complex helps switch genes on\u2014including cancer genes in leukemia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis research demonstrates that MLL4 has functions in transcription that were entirely unknown before,\u201d says Roeder. \u201cAnd because MLL4 is a key regulator of gene activity, it\u2019s important to understand how it works\u2014especially in cancer cells.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The epigenetic modifier MLL4 has an unassuming name\u2014the 4, for instance, indicates it\u2019s just one in a family of such modifiers. But MLL4 is quite special: In a specific type of leukemia, it drives disease progression, while in solid tumors, it acts as a suppressor. The paradoxical nature of MLL4 made it a compelling enigma [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}