REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1682223
Bromodomain-containing 4 as a therapeutic target in inflammatory bowel diseases and colorectal cancer
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Systems Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
- 2Fondazione PTV Policlinico Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Bromodomain-containing protein 4 (BRD4), a component of the bromodomain and extraterminal domain (BET) family, acts as a scaffold for transcription factors at promoters and super-enhancers, with the downstream effect of positively regulating the activity of signaling pathways, which sustain the inflammatory properties of immune cells and the expression of oncogens. These discoveries have boosted an intensive experimental work aimed at exploring the involvement of BRD4 in the pathogenesis of immune-mediated diseases and malignancies. As a result of these studies, there has been a considerable interest in the development of BRD4 inhibitors, which are now ready to be tested in clinical trials. In this article, we review the data about the expression and role of BRD4 in patients with Crohn's disease and patients with ulcerative colitis, the major human inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), as well as in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC). We also discuss the more recent data supporting the therapeutic benefit of BRD4 inhibitors in both IBD-and CRC-like mouse models.
Keywords: Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, Cytokines, mucosal immunity, colorectal cancer
Received: 08 Aug 2025; Accepted: 20 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Marafini, Frascatani, Colella, De Cristofaro and Monteleone. 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: Giovanni Monteleone, gi.monteleone@med.uniroma2.it
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.