Current progress in epigenetic research for hepatocarcinomagenesis |
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Authors: | Jian Huang |
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Institution: | (1) National Human Genome Research Center at Shanghai-Ministry of Science and Technology to build a healthy and disease Genomics Laboratory, Shanghai, 201203, China |
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Abstract: | Hepatocellular carcinoma is the main type of primary liver cancer, and also one of the most malignant tumors. At present,
the pathogenesis mechanisms of liver cancer are not entirely clear. It has been shown that inactivation of tumor suppressor
genes and activation of oncogenes play a significant role in carcinogenesis, caused by the genetic and epigenetic aberrance.
In the past, people generally thought that genetic mutation is a key event of tumor pathogenesis, and somatic mutation of
tumor suppressor genes is in particular closely associated with oncogenesis. With deeper understanding of tumors in recent
years, increasing evidence has shown that epigenetic silencing of those genes, as a result of aberrant hypermethylation of
CpG islands in promoters and histone modification, is essential to carcinogenesis and metastasis. The term epigenetics refers
to heritable changes in gene expression caused by regulation mechanisms, other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence.
Specific epigenetic processes include DNA methylation, genome imprinting, chromotin remodeling, histone modification and microRNA
regulations. This paper reviews recent epigenetics research progress in the hepatocellular carcinoma study, and tries to depict
the relationships between hepatocellular carcinomagenesis and DNA methylation as well as microRNA regulation.
Supported by National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2006CD910402) and Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai
Municipality (Grant No. 05DZ22201 and 08JC1416400). |
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Keywords: | tumor heaptocellular carcinoma epigenetics DNA methylation microRNA |
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