Curcumin inhibits herpes simplex virus immediate-early gene expression by a mechanism independent of p300/CBP histone acetyltransferase activity.

Curcumin, a phenolic compound from the curry spice turmeric, exhibits a wide range of activities in eukaryotic cells, including antiviral effects that are at present incompletely characterized. Curcumin is known to inhibit the histone acetyltransferase activity of the transcriptional coactivator proteins p300 and CBP, which are recruited to the immediate early (IE) gene promoters of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) by the viral transactivator protein VP16. We tested the hypothesis that curcumin, by inhibiting these coactivators, would block viral infection and gene expression.

The tumor suppressor DAL-1/4.1B modulates protein arginine N-methyltransferase 5 activity in a substrate-specific manner.

We previously identified DAL-1/4.1B as a growth suppression protein involved in the pathogenesis of lung, breast, and meningioma tumors. Using yeast two-hybrid interaction cloning, protein arginine N-methyltransferase 3 (PRMT3) was originally identified as a DAL-1/4.

DAL-1/4.1B tumor suppressor interacts with protein arginine N-methyltransferase 3 (PRMT3) and inhibits its ability to methylate substrates in vitro and in vivo.

DAL-1 (differentially expressed in adenocarcinoma of the lung)/4.1B is a tumor suppressor gene on human chromosome 18p11.3 whose expression is lost in >50% of primary non-small-cell lung carcinomas.