How does the Theileria parasite regulate its genome?

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What gives each of our millions of cells its specific cellular identity? And how can these identities be disrupted to cause diseases, such as cancer? The work of Jonathan Weitzman’s team, Epigenetics and Cell Fate unit, reveals new information on changes in cell identity originating from inside the cell.

Extract from figure 2 of the article

Selected genome region depicting epigenetic profiles and gene expression for Theileria genes belonging to the four clusters.

© Dynamic methylation of histone H3K18 in differentiating Theileria parasites. Cheeseman K, et al. Nat Commun. 2021 May 28;12(1):3221. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-23477-2

“We are looking at a very unusual case of cell identity,” says Professor Weitzman, “in which a parasite infects the white blood cells of cows and completely changes their identity so that they begin to replicate like cancer cells.” The Weitzman team has been studying this phenomenon for ten years with the support of the Labex Who Am I?. They discovered that the parasite’s genes are controlled by a new mechanism involving an enzyme called methyltransferase. The enzyme helps turn off the parasite’s genes, which gives the parasite the ability to change the identity of the host cell. “It’s amazing what we can learn by studying how simple parasites can hijack their host cells.”
The new study involves a collaboration between geneticists and biochemists from Université Paris Cité and would not have been possible without the support of Labex. It was published this month in the journal Nature Communications. The Weitzman team are now looking for drugs that can block enzyme activity and that could help restore the identity of the host cell.

See the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/
Contact: jonathan.weitzman@u-paris.fr

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