Paediatrics Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-1-2020
Journal
Epigenomes
Volume
4
Issue
3
First Page
18
Last Page
18
URL with Digital Object Identifier
https://doi.org/10.3390/epigenomes4030018
Abstract
Pancreatic cancer remains among the deadliest forms of cancer with a 5 year survival rate less than 10%. With increasing numbers being observed, there is an urgent need to elucidate the pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer. While both contribute to disease progression, neither genetic nor environmental factors completely explain susceptibility or pathogenesis. Defining the links between genetic and environmental events represents an opportunity to understand the pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer. Epigenetics, the study of mitotically heritable changes in genome function without a change in nucleotide sequence, is an emerging field of research in pancreatic cancer. The main epigenetic mechanisms include DNA methylation, histone modifications and RNA interference, all of which are altered by changes to the environment. Epigenetic mechanisms are being investigated to clarify the underlying pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer including an increasing number of studies examining the role as possible diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. These mechanisms also provide targets for promising new therapeutic approaches for this devastating malignancy.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Notes
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
This article was originally published as:
Toruner, M.; Fernandez-Zapico, M.E.; Pin, C.L. New Aspects of the Epigenetics of Pancreatic Carcinogenesis. Epigenomes 2020, 4, 18. https://doi.org/10.3390/epigenomes4030018