SMYD Protein Family as Promising Biomarkers for Cancer Diagnosis and Prognosis

Abstract

SET and MYND domain-containing (SMYD) proteins are promising biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and prognosis. All five members of this protein family have been found to regulate cancer development and tumor growth. Genomic alteration of SMYD genes is associated with worse clinical outcomes in numerous types of cancer. Aberrant expression of SMYD genes at both protein and mRNA levels is correlated with increased cancer morbidity and mortality. SMYD-mediated lysine methylation of histone and non-histone substrates is associated with an enhanced activation of cancer-promoting signaling pathways and with cell cycle progression. Such multifaceted associations have offered diverse opportunities to explore the clinical values of SMYD proteins at multiple levels, either individually or in combination. Here we discuss SMYD proteins' association with cancer, focusing on their genetic variants, copy number alterations, and protein and mRNA expression changes as well as on their histone and non-histone substrates in the context of cancer biomarkers.