Besides known genetic aberrations, epigenetic alterations have emerged as common hallmarks of many cancer types, including lung cancer. Epigenetics is a process involved in gene regulation, mediated via DNA methylation, histone modification, chromatin remodeling, and funct ...
Four major components of epigenetic regulation are promoter methylation, histone modification, chromatin conformation changes, and altered expression of noncoding RNAs, especially microRNAs (miRNAs). MiRNAs are noncoding RNAs of single-stranded RNA molecules consis ...
Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological cancer. Due to few early symptoms and a lack of early detection strategies, most patients are diagnosed with advanced-stage disease. Most of these patients, although initially responsive, eventually develop drug resistance. In this cha ...
Breast cancer is caused by progressive genetic alterations and epigenetic changes that trigger tumor development. Among the epigenetic alterations descried in breast cancer, DNA promoter methylation has been extensively studied and observed in genes involved in several criti ...
Epigenetic alterations contribute significantly to the development and progression of prostate cancer, the most prevalent malignant tumor in males of Western industrialized countries. Here, we review recent research on DNA methylation alterations in this cancer type. Hyperm ...
The prostate gland is the most common site of cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death in American men. Recent emerging molecular biological technologies help us to know that epigenetic alterations such as DNA methylation within the regulatory (promoter) regions of genes are asso ...
Glioblastoma, medulloblastoma, and ependymoma represent molecularly and clinically diverse forms of adult and pediatric brain tumors. While each tumor displays genetic, transcriptional, and cytogenetic heterogeneity, the epigenome of these tumors has only recently emer ...
Myeloid hematological malignancies are among the epigenetically best characterized neoplasms. The comparatively low number of recurring balanced and unbalanced chromosomal abnormalities as well as common genetic mutations has enabled scientists to relate epigenetic ...
Epigenetic changes are closely associated with tumor development and prognosis of bladder cancer, and its detection in specimens (tissue/body fluid) may be feasible and more sensitive than conventional methods. Additionally, the epigenetic changes are interesting from a clini ...
Cervical carcinoma is one of the major causes of death in women worldwide. It is difficult to foresee a dramatic increase in cure rate even with the most optimal combination of cytotoxic drugs, surgery, and radiation; therefore, testing of molecular targeted therapies against this malignan ...
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an aggressive tumor and still remains a challenge for its lack of effective therapeutic strategies, which is due to the late diagnosis of this disease. Methylation markers might improve early detection and surveillance of PDAC. Furthermore, ...
Pyrosequencing is a “sequencing by synthesis” technique which can be used to quantify DNA methylation at specific CpG sites within the target region of interest. Biotin labelled polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products form the template for base-pair nucleotide incorporation caus ...
In this section, we describe the use of Applied Biosystems TaqMan Array microRNA Card Set 3.0 to identify miRNA expression in a given RNA sample. This array set includes an array “A” and an array “B” which each have 384 wells that contain specific forward, reverse, and probe oligoinucleotides for measu ...
Microarrays can be used to examine changes involving all aspects of the epigenetic interactions. As the relationship between DNA methylation, histone modifications, and gene expression is elucidated, an important aspect to investigate is how the epigenetic status regulates the ce ...
Methylated CpG island amplification and microarray (MCAM) is a two-color array technique that quantifies DNA methylation by hybridizing equimolar amounts of treated vs. control cell-line DNA to an array platform. Sample preparation, hybridization, and scanning are performed ov ...
The disruption and alteration of genomic methylation patterns is a hallmark of cancer and other disease states. Understanding and characterizing genome-wide methylation will have a profound effect on our understanding of tumorigenesis and provide novel avenues for therapy. This ...
Nutrigenomics refers to the interaction between one’s diet and his/her genes. These interactions can markedly influence digestion, absorption, and the elimination of bioactive food components, as well as influence their site of actions/molecular targets. Nutrigenomics compr ...
Biochemical, epigenetic, genetic, and imaging biomarkers are used to identify people at high risk for developing cancer. In cancer epidemiology, epigenetic biomarkers offer advantages over other types of biomarkers because they are expressed against a person’s genetic backgrou ...
Cancer disparities in incidence and death rates exist among various racial and ethnic groups. These disparities are thought to be due to socioeconomic status, culture, diet, stress, the environment, and biology. Biological functions, such as epigenetic processes, are affected by all th ...
Cancer encompasses a highly heterogeneous group of diseases. It has been thought that transition from promotion to progression in carcinogenesis may be driven primarily by epigenetic abnormalities. Diet is known to play crucial roles in cancer etiology and has an important role in epige ...