Nature Communications (Jun 2021)

Transcriptional super-enhancers control cancer stemness and metastasis genes in squamous cell carcinoma

  • Jiaqiang Dong,
  • Jiong Li,
  • Yang Li,
  • Zhikun Ma,
  • Yongxin Yu,
  • Cun-Yu Wang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24137-1
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 14

Abstract

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Little is known on the transcriptional mechanisms that control cancer stem cell (CSC) self-renewal and stemness. Here the authors show superenhancers (SEs) play a role in the transcription of cancer stemness genes as well as prometastatic genes, thereby controlling their tumorigenic potential; disrupting SEs inhibited CSC self-renewal and eliminated CSCs.