Dysregulation of protein methyltransferases in human cancer: An emerging target class for anticancer therapy

Protein methylation is one of the important post‐translational modifications. Although its biological and physiological functions were unknown for a long time, we and others have characterized a number of protein methyltransferases, which have unveiled the critical functions of protein methylation in various cellular processes, in particular, in epigenetic regulation. In addition, it had been believed that protein methylation is an irreversible phenomenon, but through identification of a variety of protein demethylases, protein methylation is now considered to be dynamically regulated similar to protein phosphorylation. A large amount of evidence indicated that protein methylation has a pivotal role in post‐translational modification of histone proteins as well as non‐histone proteins and is involved in various processes of cancer development and progression. As dysregulation of this modification has been observed frequently in various types of cancer, small‐molecule inhibitors targeting protein methyltransferases and demethylases have been actively developed as anticancer drugs; clinical trials for some of these drugs have already begun. In this review, we discuss the biological and physiological importance of protein methylation in human cancer, especially focusing on the significance of protein methyltransferases as emerging targets for anticancer therapy.