Search results for "Epigenetics"
showing 10 items of 517 documents
Oxygenation and Bioenergetic Status of Murine Fibrosarcomas
1992
The heterogeneity of cellular response to therapy is a major problem in non-surgical cancer therapy. This heterogeneity is influenced by both the genetic variability between different tumor cells and by epigenetic, physiological factors, such as the local metabolic milieu. A restriction of tumor microcirculation concomitant with regional hypoxia, nutrient depletion, accumulation of lactate, and an intensified tumor acidosis becomes evident during growth of many solid tumors1. These critical factors can greatly influence the efficiency of various non-surgical tumor therapies.
Topoisomerase II regulates yeast genes with singular chromatin architectures
2013
Eukaryotic topoisomerase II (topo II) is the essential decatenase of newly replicated chromosomes and the main relaxase of nucleosomal DNA. Apart from these general tasks, topo II participates in more specialized functions. In mammals, topo IIa interacts with specific RNA polymerases and chromatin-remodeling complexes, whereas topo IIb regulates developmental genes in conjunction with chromatin remodeling and heterochromatin transitions. Here we show that in budding yeast, topo II regulates the expression of specific gene subsets. To uncover this, we carried out a genomic transcription run-on shortly after the thermal inactivation of topo II. We identified a modest number of genes not invol…
Epigenetic markers associated with metformin response and intolerance in drug-naïve patients with type 2 diabetes
2020
Metformin is the first-line pharmacotherapy for managing type 2 diabetes (T2D). However, many patients with T2D do not respond to or tolerate metformin well. Currently, there are no phenotypes that successfully predict glycemic response to, or tolerance of, metformin. We explored whether blood-based epigenetic markers could discriminate metformin response and tolerance by analyzing genome-wide DNA methylation in drug-naïve patients with T2D at the time of their diagnosis. DNA methylation of 11 and 4 sites differed between glycemic responders/nonresponders and metformin-tolerant/intolerant patients, respectively, in discovery and replication cohorts. Greater methylation at these sites associ…
Nutrigenomics and public health
2020
Abstract Nutrigenomics (the study of the bidirectional interactions between genes and diet) is rapidly developing new bodies of knowledge that will change future research in human nutrition and public health. In fact, this new research topic is becoming essential in order to design and investigate the best dietary recommendations with the aim of preventing several diseases. In this regard, it is now recognized that dietary components can affect the phenotype by regulating gene expression. Although methylation is the widest modification mediated by diet components, recent literature has pointed out several other types of epigenetic modifications, such as regulations by noncoding RNAs and his…
TP53 mutations and hepatocellular carcinoma: insights into the etiology and pathogenesis of liver cancer.
2007
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies worldwide and the major risk factors include chronic infections with the hepatitis B (HBV) or C (HCV) virus, and exposure to dietary aflatoxin B(1) (AFB(1)) or alcohol consumption. Multiple genetic and epigenetic changes are involved in the molecular pathogenesis of HCC, for example, somatic mutations in the p53 tumor suppressor gene (TP53) and the activation of the WNT signal transduction pathway. AFB(1) frequently induces G:C to T:A transversions at the third base in codon 249 of TP53 and cooperates with HBV in causing p53 mutations in HCC. The detection of TP53 mutant DNA in plasma is a biomarker of both AFB(1) exposur…
Whole-epigenome analysis in multiple myeloma reveals DNA hypermethylation of B cell-specific enhancers
2015
Abstract Analyzing the DNA methylome of multiple myeloma (MM), a plasma cell neoplasm, by whole-genome bisulfite sequencing and high-density arrays, we observed regional DNA hypermethylation embedded in extensive global hypomethylation. In contrast to the widely reported DNA hypermethylation of promoter-associated CpG islands (CGIs) in cancer, hypermethylated sites in MM as compared to normal plasma cells were located outside CpG islands and were unexpectedly associated with intronic enhancer regions active in normal B cells. Both RNA-seq and in vitro reporter assays indicated that enhancer hypermethylation is globally associated with downregulation of its host genes. ChIP-seq and DNAseI-se…
From a Better Understanding of the Mechanisms of Action of Histone Deacetylases Inhibitors to the Progress of the Treatment of Malignant Lymphomas an…
2017
Background Notable progress has been made in chemo- and immunotherapy of B-cell lymphomas, but less in the treatment of T-cell lymphomas. Objective Histone deacetylases inhibitors are a potentially useful therapeutic mean, as an epigenetic dysregulation is present in lymphomas, and especially in T-cell types. We aimed to study the progress made in this area. Method A mini-review was achieved using the articles published in PubMed in the last two years and the new patents made in this field. Results Histone deacetylases inhibitors are involved in the derepression of tumor suppressor genes through a histone deacetylase-mediated transcriptional process. Their inhibition is followed by cell cyc…
Aberrations of Genomic Imprinting in Glioblastoma Formation
2021
In human glioblastoma (GBM), the presence of a small population of cells with stem cell characteristics, the glioma stem cells (GSCs), has been described. These cells have GBM potential and are responsible for the origin of the tumors. However, whether GSCs originate from normal neural stem cells (NSCs) as a consequence of genetic and epigenetic changes and/or dedifferentiation from somatic cells remains to be investigated. Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic marking process that causes genes to be expressed depending on their parental origin. The dysregulation of the imprinting pattern or the loss of genomic imprinting (LOI) have been described in different tumors including GBM, being one …
Stochastic Loss of Silencing of the Imprinted Ndn/NDN Allele, in a Mouse Model and Humans with Prader-Willi Syndrome, Has Functional Consequences
2013
Genomic imprinting is a process that causes genes to be expressed from one allele only according to parental origin, the other allele being silent. Diseases can arise when the normally active alleles are not expressed. In this context, low level of expression of the normally silent alleles has been considered as genetic noise although such expression has never been further studied. Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) is a neurodevelopmental disease involving imprinted genes, including NDN, which are only expressed from the paternally inherited allele, with the maternally inherited allele silent. We present the first in-depth study of the low expression of a normally silent imprinted allele, in path…
miR-155expression in antitumor immunity: The higher the better?
2019
MicroRNAs are small noncoding RNAs that modulate gene expression either directly, by impairing the stability and/or translation of transcripts that contain their specific target sequence, or indirectly through the targeting of transcripts that encode transcription factors, factors implicated in signal transduction pathways, or epigenetic regulators. Abnormal expression of micro-RNAs has been found in nearly all types of pathologies, including cancers. MiR-155 has been the first microRNA to be implicated in the regulation of the innate and adaptative immune responses, and its expression is either increased or decreased in a variety of liquid and solid malignancies. In this review, we examine…