Epigenetics and pancreatic cancer: pathophysiology and novel treatment aspects.

ABSTRACT: An improvement in pancreatic cancer treatment represents an urgent medical goal. Late diagnosis and high intrinsic resistance to conventional chemotherapy has led to a dismal overall prognosis that has remained unchanged during the past decades. Increasing knowledge about the molecular pathogenesis of the disease has shown that genetic alterations, such as mutations of K-ras, and especially epigenetic dysregulation of tumor-associated genes, such as silencing of the tumor suppressor p16(ink4a), are hallmarks of pancreatic cancer. Here, we describe genes that are commonly affected by epigenetic dysregulation in pancreatic cancer via DNA methylation, histone acetylation or miRNA (microRNA) expression, and review the implications on pancreatic cancer biology such as epithelial-mesenchymal tra

SUBMITTER: Neureiter D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4069312 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature