Research Progress of Epigenetics in Pathogenesis and Treatment of Malignant Tumors

Abstract

Epigenetic modification is closely related to the occurrence and development of tumors. It mainly regulates gene function and expression level through DNA methylation, histone modification, regulation of non-coding RNA and chromatin structure reconstruction. At present, epigenetic drugs have been gradually applied to the treatment of malignant tumors. Common drug types include: DNA methyltransferase inhibitors and histone deacetylase inhibitors. However, these drugs still have many shortcomings and a wide range of clinical applications need further research. Encouragingly, the epigenetic drugs in combination with various anti-tumor drugs have shown great application potential. In this paper, we summarized the development mechanism of epigenetics in malignant tumors and the progress of related drugs.

Keywords

• neoplasms
• epigenomics
• epigenetic therapy
• drug combinations