Beating the Odds – BETs in disease

Bromo and extra-terminal (BET) proteins tether the transcriptional machinery to chromatin, stimulating programmes that are often hijacked in disease. Importantly, BET function can be targeted with small molecule inhibitors, stimulating intense research efforts to understand their underpinning biology, translating observations to the clinic, where 12 trials have been initiated since 2010, actively pursuing attenuating BET function in solid and hematopoietic tumours. Recent advances in our understanding of the roles of BETs in regulating gene transcription in normal and diseased tissue as well as the current status of their clinical translation are reviewed by the SGC in TIBS this month.

PMID: 26145250

TIBS online: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0968-0004(15)00107-3