title: Clinical implications of epigenetic alterations in human thoracic malignancies: epigenetic alterations in lung cancer.
abstract: 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 functional noncoding RNAs, which influences the accessibility of the underlying DNA to transcriptional regulatory factors that activate or repress expression. Studies have shown that epigenetic dysregulation is associated with multiple steps during carcinogenesis. Since epigenetic therapy is now in clinical use in hematopoietic diseases and undergoing trials for lung cancer, a better understanding of epigenetic abnormalities is desired. Recent technologies for high-throughput genome-wide analyses for epigenetic modifications are promising and potent tools for understanding the global dysregulation of cancer epigenetics. In this chapter, studies of epigenetic abnormality and its clinical implication in lung cancers are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Division of Molecular Oncology, Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Japan.
authors.forename: Keiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shinjo
authors.forename: Yutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kondo
mesh_terms: D017209:Apoptosis / Q000235:genetics; D002448:Cell Adhesion / Q000235:genetics; D002453:Cell Cycle / Q000235:genetics; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000235:genetics; D018899:CpG Islands / Q000235:genetics; D019175:DNA Methylation; D004260:DNA Repair / Q000235:genetics; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D057890:Epigenomics / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D008954:Models, Biological; D009154:Mutation / Q000235:genetics