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Cancer epigenetics is the study of somatically heritable changes to molecular processes that influence the flow of information between the DNA of cancer cells and their gene expression patterns. This includes comparative (tumour cell versus normal cell) investigation of nuclear organization, DNA methylation, histone modification and the consequences of genetic mutations in genes encoding epigenetic regulators.
Here, the authors functionally characterize a complex genetic variant relevant in prostate cancer that regulates IRX4 expression through epigenetic activation. This work highlights the significance of non-single nucleotide polymorphism causal variants in explaining disease risk.
Duplaquet, Li et al. identify and characterize KDM6A as an epigenetic regulator that impacts chromatin accessibility to modulate ASCL1-to-NEUROD1 subtype switching in small cell lung cancer.
Rahme et al. establish an in vivo model for low-grade glioma, and use it to demonstrate that Pdgfra insulator loss and Cdkn2a promoter silencing are epigenetic drivers of gliomagenesis.
Two independent studies published in Nature have collectively addressed the long-standing question of sex bias in cancer and implicated non-hormonal genes of the Y chromosome in aggressive features of colorectal and bladder cancers in men.
