Epigenetic modifications in cancer progression: A potential target for personalized therapy

Abstract

Cytosine-phosphate-Guanine (CpG) islands, non-coding RNA expression, and histone modifications are the three major epigenetic changes that are implicated in cancerogenesis. Knowledge of such changes may be useful in designing particular therapeutic approaches for clients. This work will seek to examine the part that epigenetic changes play in cancer and also attempt to establish whether or not they can be used as targets for treatment. Biopsy samples for Histone modifications, DNA methylation and noncoding RNA expression were collected from fifty cancer patients and thirty non-cancer individuals. These methods were DNA methylation, histone modification, and RNA-seq. For the analysis of the obtained data, statistical and bioinformatics methods were applied to define the epigenetic changes and their relationship with the clinical characteristics. For instance, genes like BRCA1 and MLH1 were established to have high levels of differential methylation; the tumor tissues exhibited high levels of methylation. The results also showed that the level of H3K27me3 was down-regulated in cancer samples compared to normal samples while the level of H3K4me3 was up-regulated in cancer samples compared to normal samples. The tumoral level of non-coding RNAs including miR-21 was higher compared with the control while that of miR-34a was lower. These outcomes are connected with cancerogenesis and can be considered as biomarkers for diagnostics and treatment. Epigenetic modifications are very essential in the progression of the disease and the growth of cancer. For these alterations, the specific therapies are now seen as potential for developing personalized medicine.