If anyone still cares about science...
posted on
Oct 09, 2020 04:38PM
While waiting for a deal to be struck with BP, here are some observations made by researchers from (among others) GlaxoSmithKline - observations on the pharmaceutical benefit of inhibiting BD2 over BD1. Note the comment about "BD2 inhibitors were predominantly effective in models of inflammatory and autoimmune disease".
Inflammation is the keyword. I believe I have said that before. The article was published in Science - it does not really get more prestigious than that. This is what the best researchers in the world believe is the best research.
The two tandem bromodomains of the BET (bromodomain and extraterminal domain) proteins enable chromatin binding to facilitate transcription. Drugs that inhibit both bromodomains equally have shown efficacy in certain malignant and inflammatory conditions. To explore the individual functional contributions of the first (BD1) and second (BD2) bromodomains in biology and therapy, we developed selective BD1 and BD2 inhibitors. We found that steady-state gene expression primarily requires BD1, whereas the rapid increase of gene expression induced by inflammatory stimuli requires both BD1 and BD2 of all BET proteins. BD1 inhibitors phenocopied the effects of pan-BET inhibitors in cancer models, whereas BD2 inhibitors were predominantly effective in models of inflammatory and autoimmune disease. These insights into the differential requirement of BD1 and BD2 for the maintenance and induction of gene expression may guide future BET-targeted therapies.