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Epigenetic signatures in cancer: proper controls, current challenges and the potential for clinical translation
Epigenetic alterations are associated with normal biological processes such as aging or differentiation. Changes in global epigenetic signatures, together with genetic alterations, are driving events in several diseases including cancer. Comparative studies of cancer and healthy tissues found altera...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7874645/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33568205 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13073-021-00837-7 |
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author | Mancarella, Daniela Plass, Christoph |
author_facet | Mancarella, Daniela Plass, Christoph |
author_sort | Mancarella, Daniela |
collection | PubMed |
description | Epigenetic alterations are associated with normal biological processes such as aging or differentiation. Changes in global epigenetic signatures, together with genetic alterations, are driving events in several diseases including cancer. Comparative studies of cancer and healthy tissues found alterations in patterns of DNA methylation, histone posttranslational modifications, and changes in chromatin accessibility. Driven by sophisticated, next-generation sequencing-based technologies, recent studies discovered cancer epigenomes to be dominated by epigenetic patterns already present in the cell-of-origin, which transformed into a neoplastic cell. Tumor-specific epigenetic changes therefore need to be redefined and factors influencing epigenetic patterns need to be studied to unmask truly disease-specific alterations. The underlying mechanisms inducing cancer-associated epigenetic alterations are poorly understood. Studies of mutated epigenetic modifiers, enzymes that write, read, or edit epigenetic patterns, or mutated chromatin components, for example oncohistones, help to provide functional insights on how cancer epigenomes arise. In this review, we highlight the importance and define challenges of proper control tissues and cell populations to exploit cancer epigenomes. We summarize recent advances describing mechanisms leading to epigenetic changes in tumorigenesis and briefly discuss advances in investigating their translational potential. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7874645 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-78746452021-02-11 Epigenetic signatures in cancer: proper controls, current challenges and the potential for clinical translation Mancarella, Daniela Plass, Christoph Genome Med Review Epigenetic alterations are associated with normal biological processes such as aging or differentiation. Changes in global epigenetic signatures, together with genetic alterations, are driving events in several diseases including cancer. Comparative studies of cancer and healthy tissues found alterations in patterns of DNA methylation, histone posttranslational modifications, and changes in chromatin accessibility. Driven by sophisticated, next-generation sequencing-based technologies, recent studies discovered cancer epigenomes to be dominated by epigenetic patterns already present in the cell-of-origin, which transformed into a neoplastic cell. Tumor-specific epigenetic changes therefore need to be redefined and factors influencing epigenetic patterns need to be studied to unmask truly disease-specific alterations. The underlying mechanisms inducing cancer-associated epigenetic alterations are poorly understood. Studies of mutated epigenetic modifiers, enzymes that write, read, or edit epigenetic patterns, or mutated chromatin components, for example oncohistones, help to provide functional insights on how cancer epigenomes arise. In this review, we highlight the importance and define challenges of proper control tissues and cell populations to exploit cancer epigenomes. We summarize recent advances describing mechanisms leading to epigenetic changes in tumorigenesis and briefly discuss advances in investigating their translational potential. BioMed Central 2021-02-10 /pmc/articles/PMC7874645/ /pubmed/33568205 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13073-021-00837-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Review Mancarella, Daniela Plass, Christoph Epigenetic signatures in cancer: proper controls, current challenges and the potential for clinical translation |
title | Epigenetic signatures in cancer: proper controls, current challenges and the potential for clinical translation |
title_full | Epigenetic signatures in cancer: proper controls, current challenges and the potential for clinical translation |
title_fullStr | Epigenetic signatures in cancer: proper controls, current challenges and the potential for clinical translation |
title_full_unstemmed | Epigenetic signatures in cancer: proper controls, current challenges and the potential for clinical translation |
title_short | Epigenetic signatures in cancer: proper controls, current challenges and the potential for clinical translation |
title_sort | epigenetic signatures in cancer: proper controls, current challenges and the potential for clinical translation |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7874645/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33568205 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13073-021-00837-7 |
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