Glycine is a major amino acid in mammals and other animals. It is synthesized from serine, threonine, choline, and hydroxyproline via inter-organ metabolism involving primarily the liver and kidneys. Under normal feeding conditions, glycine is not adequately synthesized in birds or in other animals, particularly in a diseased state. Glycine degradation occurs through three pathways: the glycine cleavage system (GCS), serine hydroxymethyltransferase, and conversion to glyoxylate by peroxisomal D-amino acid oxidase. Among these pathways, GCS is the major enzyme to initiate glycine degradation to form ammonia and CO2 in animals. In addition, glycine is utilized for the biosynthesis of glutathione, heme, creatine, nucleic acids, and uric acid. Furthermore, glycine is a significant component of bile acids secreted into the lumen of the small intestine that is necessary for the digestion of dietary fat and the absorption of long-chain fatty acids. Glycine plays an important role in metabolic regulation, anti-oxidative reactions, and neurological function. Thus, this nutrient has been used to: (1) prevent tissue injury; (2) enhance anti-oxidative capacity; (3) promote protein synthesis and wound healing; (4) improve immunity; and (5) treat metabolic disorders in obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, ischemia-reperfusion injuries, cancers, and various inflammatory diseases. These multiple beneficial effects of glycine, coupled with its insufficient de novo synthesis, support the notion that it is a conditionally essential and also a functional amino acid for mammals (including pigs and humans).

Both EZH2 and NF-κB contribute to aggressive breast cancer, yet whether the two oncogenic factors have functional crosstalk in breast cancer is unknown. Here, we uncover an unexpected role of EZH2 in conferring the constitutive activation of NF-κB target gene expression in ER-negative basal-like breast cancer cells. This function of EZH2 is independent of its histone methyltransferase activity but requires the physical interaction with RelA/RelB to promote the expression of NF-κB targets. Intriguingly, EZH2 acts oppositely in ER-positive luminal-like breast cancer cells and represses NF-κB target gene expression by interacting with ER and directing repressive histone methylation on their promoters. Thus, EZH2 functions as a double-facet molecule in breast cancers, either as a transcriptional activator or repressor of NF-κB targets, depending on the cellular context. These findings reveal an additional mechanism by which EZH2 promotes breast cancer progression and underscore the need for developing context-specific strategy for therapeutic targeting of EZH2 in breast cancers.

Amino acids (AA) have enormous physiological importance, serving as building blocks for proteins and substrates for synthesis of low-molecular-weight substances. Based on growth or nitrogen balance, AA were traditionally classified as nutritionally essential or nonessential for animals. Although those AA that are not synthesized in eukaryotes (nutritionally essential AA, EAA) must be present in animal diets, nutritionally nonessential AA (NEAA) have long been ignored for all species. Emerging evidence shows that nonruminants cannot adequately synthesize NEAA or conditionally essential AA (CEAA) to realize their growth or anti-infection potential. Likewise, all preformed AA are needed for high-producing cows and rapidly growing ruminants. Many NEAA and CEAA (e.g., arginine, glutamine, glutamate, glycine, and proline) and certain EAA (e.g., leucine and tryptophan) participate in cell signaling, gene expression, and metabolic regulation. Thus, functions of AA beyond protein synthesis must be considered in dietary formulations to improve efficiency of nutrient use, growth, development, reproduction, lactation, and well-being in animals.

The Rb-E2F pathway drives cell cycle progression and cell proliferation, and the molecular strategies safeguarding its activity are not fully understood. Here we report that E2F1 directly transactivates miR-449a/b. miR-449a/b targets and inhibits oncogenic CDK6 and CDC25A, resulting in pRb dephosphorylation and cell cycle arrest at G1 phase, revealing a negative feedback regulation of the pRb-E2F1 pathway. Moreover, miR449a/b expression in cancer cells is epigenetically repressed through histone H3 Lys27 trimethylation, and epigenetic drug treatment targeting histone methylation results in strong induction of miR-449a/b. Our study reveals a tumor suppressor function of miR-449a/b through regulating Rb/E2F1 activity, and suggests that escape from this regulation through an aberrant epigenetic event contributes to E2F1 deregulation and unrestricted proliferation in human cancer.Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.