© 2004 by Oxford University Press
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© 2004 Oxford University Press
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Silencing the Critics: New Studies Move Closer to Answering Epigenetic Questions
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The role of epigenetics in cancer has been debated since the early 1980s, but results of several recent experiments have prompted even the naysayers to consider that epigenetic changes are not just a consequence but a cause of cancer. And now the field is exploding with the first drug approval, numerous clinical trials, questions about the consequences of such therapies, and even discussions of a federally funded, large-scale epigenome project.
The Smoking Guns
Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression such as methylation and loss of imprinting that occur without a change in genetic code. For cancer, the big question is how epigenetic changes affect tumorigenesis. Several experiments have recently been published that some experts in the field think finally provide the answer.
For example, in two of those experiments, researchers at St. Jude
Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., and the Whitehead Institute
for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass.,
Mechanism of Action Obscured
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