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Epigenetics of lung cancer
Author(s) -
BOWMAN Rayleen V.,
YANG Ian A.,
SEMMLER Annalese B.T.,
FONG Kwun M.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
respirology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.857
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1440-1843
pISSN - 1323-7799
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-1843.2006.00859.x
Subject(s) - epigenetics , chromatin , histone , epigenetics of physical exercise , dna methylation , epigenomics , cancer epigenetics , genomic imprinting , biology , genetics , nucleosome , bivalent chromatin , histone code , chromatin remodeling , histone methylation , computational biology , histone modifying enzymes , dna , gene , gene expression , histone methyltransferase
Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression that occur without changes in DNA sequence. It has a role in determining when and where a gene is expressed during development. Perhaps the most well known epigenetic mechanism is DNA methylation whereby cytosines at position 5 in CpG dinucleotides are methylated. Histone modification is another form of epigenetic control, which is quite complex and diverse. Histones and DNA make up the nucleosome which is the structural unit of chromatin which are involved in packaging DNA. Apart from the crucial role epigenetics plays in embryonic development, transcription, chromatin structure, X chromosome inactivation and genomic imprinting, its role in an increasing number of human diseases is more and more recognized. These diseases include cancer, and lung cancer in particular has been increasingly studied for the potential biological role of epigenetic changes with the promise of better and novel diagnostic and therapeutic tools.