Recombinant Protein Expression and Purification of the Human HMTase MMSET/NSD2

Chromatin remodelers that include histone methyl transferases (HMTases) are becoming a focal point in cancer drug development. The NSD family of three HMTases, NSD1, NSD2/MMSET/WHSC1, and NSD3/WHSC1L are bona fide oncogenes found aberrantly expressed in several cancers, suggesting their potential role for novel therapeutic strategies. Several histone modifiers including HMTase have clear roles in human carcinogenesis but the extent of their functions and regulations are not well understood, especially in pathological conditions. The extents of the NSDs biological roles in normal and pathological conditions remain unclear. In particular, the substrate specificity of the NSDs remains unsettled and discrepant data has been reported. NSD2/MMSET is a focal point for therapeutic interventions against multiple myeloma and especially for t(4;14) myeloma, which is associated with a significantly worse prognosis than other biological subgroups. Multiple myeloma is the second most common hematological malignancy in the United States, after non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Herein, as a first step before entering a pipeline for protein x-ray crystallography, we cloned, recombinantly expressed and purified the catalytic SET domain of NSD2. Next, we demonstrated the catalytic activities, in vitro, of the recombinantly expressed NSD2-SET on H3K36 and H4K20, its biological targets at the chromatin.