The histone chaperone FACT plays important roles in essentially every chromatin-associated process and is an important indirect target of the curaxin class of anti-cancer drugs. Curaxins are aromatiс compounds that intercalate into DNA and can trap FACT in bulk chromatin, thus interfering with its distribution and its functions in cancer cells. Recent studies have provided mechanistic insight into how FACT and curaxins cooperate to promote unfolding of nucleosomes and chromatin fibers, resulting in genome-wide disruption of contact chromatin domain boundaries, perturbation of higher order chromatin organization, and global disregulation of gene expression. Here, we discuss the implications of these insights for cancer biology.
Keywords: chromatin structure; genomics; nucleosomes; transcription.