Journal ArticleDOI
The epigenetic progenitor origin of human cancer
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TLDR
This work suggests that non-neoplastic but epigenetically disrupted stem/progenitor cells might be a crucial target for cancer risk assessment and chemoprevention.Abstract:
Cancer is widely perceived as a heterogeneous group of disorders with markedly different biological properties, which are caused by a series of clonally selected genetic changes in key tumour-suppressor genes and oncogenes. However, recent data suggest that cancer has a fundamentally common basis that is grounded in a polyclonal epigenetic disruption of stem/progenitor cells, mediated by 'tumour-progenitor genes'. Furthermore, tumour cell heterogeneity is due in part to epigenetic variation in progenitor cells, and epigenetic plasticity together with genetic lesions drives tumour progression. This crucial early role for epigenetic alterations in cancer is in addition to epigenetic alterations that can substitute for genetic variation later in tumour progression. Therefore, non-neoplastic but epigenetically disrupted stem/progenitor cells might be a crucial target for cancer risk assessment and chemoprevention.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
The epigenomics of cancer.
Peter A. Jones,Stephen B. Baylin +1 more
TL;DR: Recent advances in understanding how epigenetic alterations participate in the earliest stages of neoplasia, including stem/precursor cell contributions, are reviewed and the growing implications of these advances for strategies to control cancer are discussed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Epigenetics in Cancer
TL;DR: The current understanding of alterations in the epigenetic landscape that occur in cancer compared with normal cells, the roles of these changes in cancer initiation and progression, including the cancer stem cell model, and the potential use of this knowledge in designing more effective treatment strategies are discussed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Cancer Metastasis: Building a Framework
Gaorav P. Gupta,Joan Massagué +1 more
TL;DR: Understanding of the origins and nature of cancer metastasis and the selection of traits that are advantageous to cancer cells is promoted.
Journal ArticleDOI
Transitions between epithelial and mesenchymal states: acquisition of malignant and stem cell traits
TL;DR: Owing to the importance of these tumour-associated phenotypes in metastasis and cancer-related mortality, targeting the products of such cellular plasticity is an attractive but challenging approach that is likely to lead to improved clinical management of cancer patients.
Journal ArticleDOI
A decade of exploring the cancer epigenome — biological and translational implications
Stephen B. Baylin,Peter A. Jones +1 more
TL;DR: Next-generation sequencing is providing a window for visualizing the human epigenome and how it is altered in cancer, including linking epigenetic abnormalities to mutations in genes that control DNA methylation, the packaging and the function of DNA in chromatin, and metabolism.
References
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Peter A. Jones,Stephen B. Baylin +1 more
TL;DR: This review discusses patterns of DNA methylation and chromatin structure in neoplasia and the molecular alterations that might cause them and/or underlie altered gene expression in cancer.