Roles of N-Myc and STAT interactor in cancer: From initiation to dissemination

Pruitt, Hawley C.; Devine, Daniel J.; Samant, Rajeev S.

Additional studies investigating the function and clinical relevance of NMI are needed. However, at this stage of NMI research, experimental data support the notion that NMI affects numerous mechanisms essential to the initiation and progression of tumors. NMI has clearly emerged as a protein that binds to both transcription factors as well as epigenetic modifiers and modulates their activities. Thus far, the only chromatin modifiers shown to bind NMI are histone acetyltransferases (HATs). Luciferase reporter studies indicate that these interactions influence promoter activity of downstream target genes. The functional consequences of the molecular interaction between NMI, transcription factors and HATs remain unclear. Clinical studies suggest that NMI plays a tumor suppressive role in epithelial cancers such as breast cancer while it indicates a poor prognosis in mesenchymal-like tumors such as gliomas. It is likely that the stage in which NMI is most critical depends on the specific histological tumor type and how far it has progressed. It is conceivable that NMI may contribute to intra-tumor heterogeneity, a concept that needs experimental validation.