Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is one of the main causes of Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) which is one of leading causes of cancer related deaths globally. Pseudogenes have recently been linked to patient prognoses and cancer subtypes highlighting the clinical importance of pseudogenes. This study helmed by N2CR member Prof Daniel Tenen describes role for pseudogenes that can demethylate and activate oncogenes. His team focused-on oncogene SALL4 in HCC with eight pseudogenes and identified pseudogene 5 which is significantly increased in patients with HBV-HCC.  Hence this study shows that pseudogene-mediated demethylation represents a novel mechanism of oncogene activation in cancer.

Link to website: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abg1695