Melanoma epigenetics: novel mechanisms, markers, and medicines.

ABSTRACT: The incidence and mortality rates of cutaneous melanoma continue to increase worldwide, despite the deployment of targeted therapies. Recently, there has been rapid growth and development in our understanding of epigenetic mechanisms and their role in cancer pathobiology. Epigenetics--defined as the processes resulting in heritable changes in gene expression beyond those caused by alterations in the DNA sequence--likely contain the information that encodes for such phenotypic variation between individuals with identical genotypes. By altering the structure of chromatin through covalent modification of DNA bases or histone proteins, or by regulating mRNA translation through non-coding RNAs, the epigenome ultimately determines which genes are expressed and which are kept silent. While our un

SUBMITTER: Lee JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4479581 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature