Dr. Abhijit Parolia - A Rising Scholar
By Lynn McCain | March 21
On Thursday, March 20th, the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute presented its Rising Scholars Lecture with pathology’s Dr. Abhijit Parolia, assistant professor of experimental pathology, entitled NSD2 is a requisite subunit of the AR/FOXA1 neo-enhanceosome in promoting prostate tumorigenesis. Rising Scholar lectures showcase NCI-supported early career researchers with outstanding research findings.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer found in men, with 1 in 8 men diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, with a new prostate cancer diagnosis made every 2 minutes in the US. It is the second leading cause of cancer death in men. Androgen Receptor (AR)-dependent prostate cancer frequently progresses to castrate-resistant prostate cancer, which is very difficult to treat. Parolia’s lab discovered the protein NSD2 plays a key role in enabling AR’s cancer-promoting activity.
“NSD2 is only expressed in prostate cancer cells, where it directly interacts with AR and helps it bind to new areas of DNA. This new binding pattern comprises over 65% of AR’s binding sites in prostatic tumors,” explained Parolia. He discovered that when NSD2 was inhibited, or blocked so it could not function, prostate cancer cells began to behave more like normal cells and less like cancer. He then discovered that blocking NSD2 caused the cancer cells to become more dependent on a similar protein, NSD1. “Inhibition of both NSD1 and NSD2 together caused the death of AR-dependent prostate cancer cells. This research suggests that targeting both NSD1 and NSD2 could be a promising new treatment strategy for advanced prostate cancer.”
Parolia’s research was supported by grant funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute and has been published in Nature Genetics. His Rising Scholar lecture can be viewed here.
Citation:
Parolia, A., Eyunni, S, …Irfan Asangani et al. NSD2 is a requisite subunit of AR/FOXA1 neo-enhanceosome in promoting prostate tumorigenesis. 2024 Nat Gen 56:2132-2143. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-024-01893-6.
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