PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Epigenet. Epigenom.
Sec. Epigenetics and Metabolism
Volume 3 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/freae.2025.1638572
This article is part of the Research TopicEpigenetics and Metabolism: A Closed Liaison in Tumor CellsView all articles
Cancer metabolism rewiring and chromatin methylation: a vulnerable epi-metabolic link
Provisionally accepted
- 1Istituto di analisi dei sistemi ed informatica Antonio Ruberti Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Rome, Italy
- 2Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri SpA IRCCS Pavia, Pavia, Italy
- 3Institute of Molecular Biology and Pathology, Department of Biomedical Sciences, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy
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Over the past few years, significant advances have been made in understanding the crosstalk between cancer metabolism and gene expression. Whereas higher levels of expression of metabolic enzymes may be considered a conceivable compensatory mechanism to satisfy the increasing request of energy of tumor cells, the detection of changes in the amount and species of intermediate metabolites (oncometabolites) and the discovery of their functional role as co-factors and structural components of chromatin modifiers tightened the link between metabolic shifts and epigenome reshaping in cancer. Changes in the chromatin methylation landscape are one of the epigenetic fingerprints of cancer metabolic rewiring associated with the tumorigenic features of neoplasms. Thus, we propose targeting metabolic enzymes directly involved in cancer methylome remodeling and oncometabolite-dependent chromatin modifiers as innovative tools to reset the epigenome of deregulated cancer cells.
Keywords: Oncometabolite, Chromatin methylation, D-2 hydroxyglutarate, S-adenosine-L-methionine, ten- eleven translocation proteins, PRMT (Protein Arginine Methyltransferase)
Received: 30 May 2025; Accepted: 16 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Atlante, Barbi, Gaetano and Illi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Barbara Illi, Institute of Molecular Biology and Pathology, Department of Biomedical Sciences, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy
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