title: The impact of DNA methylation technologies on drug toxicology.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Drug toxicology is central to drug development. Despite improvements in our understanding of molecular and cell biology, high attrition rates in drug development continue, speaking to the difficulties of developing unequivocal methods to predict the efficacy and safety of drugs.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this review, the authors provide a short overview of the 'omics' technologies that have been applied to drug toxicology, with an emphasis on a whole-genome DNA methylation analysis. Preliminary results from DNA methylation analysis technologies that may help in predicting response and efficacy of a drug are discussed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Currently, we cannot fully contextualize the application of epigenetics to the field of drug toxicology, as there are still many challenges to overcome before DNA methylation-based biomarkers can be effectively used in drug development. Comprehensive whole-genome DNA methylation methods for a unbiased analysis based on either microarray or next-generation sequencing need to be evaluated in drug toxicology in an intensive and systematic manner. Additionally, robust analysis systems need to be developed to decode the large amounts of data generated by whole-genome DNA methylation analyses as well as protocol standardization for reproducibility to develop meaningful databases that can be applied to drug toxicology.
authors.affiliation: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico UNAM/Instituto Nacional de Cancerologia, Unidad de Investigacion Biomedica en Cancer, Insituto de Investigaciones Biomedicas , San Fernando 22, Tlalpan, Mexico City , Mexico alfonso_duenasg@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Alfonso
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dueñas-Gonzalez
authors.forename: Brenda
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Alatorre
authors.forename: Aurora
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gonzalez-Fierro
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism; D019175:DNA Methylation / Q000187:drug effects*; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D015507:Drugs, Investigational / Q000009:adverse effects*; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic / Q000187:drug effects*; D057890:Epigenomics / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000187:drug effects*; D006801:Humans; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends; D010601:Pharmacology, Clinical / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends; D040901:Proteomics / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D015507:Drugs, Investigational