Review

Cell Research (2005) 15, 247–254. doi:10.1038/sj.cr.7290293

Epigenetic alterations in gastric carcinogenesis

In-Seon CHOI1 and Tsung-Teh WU1

1Department of Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

Correspondence: Tsung-Teh WU, Tel: 713-745-4977 Fax: 713-792-4049 E-mail: twu@mdanderson.org

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Abstract

Gastric cancer is believed to result in part from the accumulation of multiple genetic alterations leading to oncogene overexpression and tumor suppressor loss. Epigenetic alterations as a distinct and crucial mechanism to silence a variety of methylated tissue-specific and imprinted genes, have been extensively studied in gastric carcinoma and play important roles in gastric carcinogenesis. This review will briefly discuss the basic aspects of DNA methylation and CpG island methylation, in particular the epigenetic alterations of certain critical genes implicated in gastric carcinogenesis and its relevance of clinical implications.

Keywords:

epigenetic alterations, gastric carcinogenesis, chronic gastritis, intestinal metaplasia, dysplasia/adenoma, adenocarcinoma

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