People will forgive you for being wrong, but they will never forgive you for being right – especially if events prove you right while proving them wrong. Thomas Sowell
This 2018 Chinese review highlighted areas in which CRISPR/Cas9 technology has, is, and could be applied to rewrite epigenetic changes:
“CRISPR/Cas9-mediated epigenome editing holds a great promise for epigenetic studies and therapeutics.
It could be used to selectively modify epigenetic marks at a given locus to explore mechanisms of how targeted epigenetic alterations would affect transcription regulation and cause subsequent phenotype changes. For example, inducing histone methylation or acetylation at the Fosb locus in the mice brain reward region, nucleus accumbens, could affect relevant transcription network and thus control behavioralresponses evoked by drug and stress.
Epigenome editing has the potential for epigenetic treatment, especially for the disorders with abnormal gene imprinting or epigenetic marks. Targeted epigenetic silencing or reactivation of the mutant allele could be a potential therapeutic approach for diseases such as Rett syndrome and Huntington’s disease.
Noncoding RNA plays important roles in gene imprinting and chromatin remodeling. CRISPR/Cas9 has been shown to be potential for manipulating noncoding RNA expression, including microRNA, long noncoding RNA, and miRNA families and clusters.
In vivo overexpression of the Yamanaka factors have proven to be able to fully or partially help somatic cells to regain pluripotency in situ. These rejuvenated cells would subsequently differentiate again to replace the lost cell types.”
“To date, the most effective in vitro intervention against epigenetic ageing is achieved through expression of Yamanaka factors, which convert somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells, thereby completely resetting the epigenetic clock.”
The reviewers cited three references for in vivo studies of this technique. Overall, I didn’t see that any of the review’s references were in vivo human studies.
The originator of the 2013 epigenetic clock improved its coverage with this 2018 UCLA human study:
“We present a new DNA methylation-based biomarker (based on 391 CpGs) that was developed to accurately measure the age of human fibroblasts, keratinocytes, buccal cells, endothelial cells, skin and blood samples. We also observe strong age correlations in sorted neurons, glia, brain, liver, and bone samples.
The skin & blood clock outperforms widely used existing biomarkers when it comes to accurately measuring the age of an individual based on DNA extracted from skin, dermis, epidermis, blood, saliva, buccal swabs, and endothelial cells. Thus, the biomarker can also be used for forensic and biomedical applications involving human specimens.
The biomarker applies to the entire age span starting from newborns, e.g. DNAm of cord blood samples correlates with gestational week.
Furthermore, the skin & blood clock confirms the effect of lifestyle and demographic variables on epigenetic aging. Essentially it highlights a significant trend of accelerated epigenetic aging with sub-clinical indicators of poor health.
Conversely, reduced aging rate is correlated with known health-improving features such as physical exercise, fish consumption, high carotenoid levels. As with the other age predictors, the skin & blood clock is also able to predict time to death.
Collectively, these features show that while the skin & blood clock is clearly superior in its performance on skin cells, it crucially retained all the other features that are common to other existing age estimators.”
An introduction to the study highlighted several items:
“Although the skin-blood clock was derived from significantly less samples (~900) than Horvath’s clock (~8000 samples), it was found to more accurately predict chronological age, not only across fibroblasts and skin, but also across blood, buccal and saliva tissue. A potential factor driving this improved accuracy in blood could be related to the approximate 18-fold increase in genomic coverage afforded by using Illumina 450k/850k beadarrays.
It serves as a roadmap for future clock studies, pointing towards the importance of constructing tissue or cell-type specific epigenetic clocks, to more accurately measure biological aging in the given tissue/cell-type, and therefore with the potential to be more informative of disease-risk or the success of disease interventions in the tissue or cell-type of interest.”
“If sexually naïve females have their formative sexually rewarding experiences paired with the same male, they will recognize that male and display mate-guarding behavior towards him in the presence of a female competitor. Female rats that display mate-guarding behavior also show enhanced activation of oxytocin and vasopressin neurons in the supraoptic and paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus.
We examined the effect of a lysine-specific demethylase-1 inhibitor to block the action of demethylase enzymes and maintain the methylation state of corresponding genes. Female rats treated with the demethylase inhibitor failed to show any measure of mate guarding, whereas females treated with vehicle displayed mate guarding behavior. Demethylase inhibitor treatment also blocked the ability of familiar male cues to activate oxytocin and vasopressin neurons, whereas vehicle-treated females showed this enhanced activation.”
General principles and their study-specific illustrations were:
“Histone modifications are a key element in gene regulation through chromatin remodeling. Histone methylation / demethylation does not have straightforward transcriptional outcomes as do other histone modifications, like acetylation, which is almost invariably associated with transcriptional activation.
What is of vital importance in regards to histone methylation / demethylation is the pattern of methylation that is established. Patterns of methylation incorporate both methylated and demethylated residues, and are what ultimately play a role in transcriptional outcomes.
In the present study, inhibiting LSD1 demethylase enzymes disrupted the ability of cells to properly establish histone methylation / demethylation patterns, thus creating a deficit in the cells’ ability to transcribe the gene products necessary for the enhanced induction of OT, AVP, and the subsequent mate-guarding behaviors we observed. This study is the first to demonstrate a definitive role of epigenetic histone modifications in a conditioned sexual response.”
“Additionally we found an association between DNAm [DNA methylation] age acceleration and rLTL [relative leukocyte telomere length], suggesting that this epigenetic clock, at least partially and possibly better than other epigenetic clocks, reflects biological age.”
Statements in the study that contradicted, qualified, and limited the concluding sentence included:
“The epigenetic clock seems to be mostly independent from the mitotic clock as measured by the rLTL.
It could be possible that associations are confounded due to short age ranges or non-continuous age distribution, as displayed in the BASE-II cohort (no participants between the age of 38 and 59 years). [see the below graphic]
The BASE-II is a convenience sample and participants have been shown to be positively selected with respect to education, health and cognition.
Samples in which DNAm age and chronological age differed more than three standard deviations from the mean were excluded (N=19).
While the original publication employed eight CpG sites for DNAm age estimation, we found that one of these sites did not significantly improve chronological age prediction in BASE-II. Thus, we reduced the number of sites considered to seven in the present study and adapted the algorithm to calculate DNAm age.
Horvath described a subset of 353 methylation sites predicting an individual’s chronological age with high accuracy..
Even though the available methods using more CpG sites to estimate DNAm age predict chronological age with higher accuracy..
It is not clear how much of the deviation between chronological age and DNAm age reflects measurement error/low number of methylation sites and which proportion can be attributed to biological age.
Due to the statistical method employed, we encountered a systematic deviation of DNAm age in our dataset.”
Findings that aren’t warranted by the data is an all-too-common problem with published research. This study illustrated how researcher hypothesis-seeking behavior – that disregarded what they knew or should have known – can combine with a statistics package to produce almost any finding.
The barbell shape of the subjects’ age distribution wouldn’t make sense if the researchers knew they were going to later use the epigenetic clock method.
The researchers did so, although the method’s instructive study noted:
“The standard deviation of age has a strong relationship with age correlation”
and provided further details in “The age correlation in a data set is determined by the standard deviation of age” section.
Didn’t the researchers, their organizations, and their sponsors realize that this study’s problematic design and performance could misdirect readers away from the valid epigenetic clock evidence they referenced? What purposes did it serve for them to publish this study?
Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long? And wouldn’t it be nice to live together In the kind of world where we belong?
You know it’s gonna make it that much better When we can say goodnight and stay together
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up In the morning when the day is new? And after having spent the day together Hold each other close the whole night through?
Happy times together we’ve been spending I wish that every kiss was neverending Oh wouldn’t it be nice?
Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true Baby then there wouldn’t be a single thing we couldn’t do We could be married (we could be married) And then we’d be happy (and then we’d be happy) Oh wouldn’t it be nice?
You know it seems the more we talk about it It only makes it worse to live without it But lets talk about it Oh wouldn’t it be nice?
A subset of memory recall–induced neurons in the DG [dentate gyrus] becomes reactivated after memory attenuation,
The degree of fear reduction positively correlates with this reactivation, and
The continued activity of memory recall–induced neurons is critical for remote fear memory attenuation.
Although other brain areas such as the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala are likely to be implicated in remote fear memories and remain to be investigated, these results suggest that fear attenuation at least partially occurs in memory recall–induced ensembles through updating or unlearning of the original memory trace of fear.
These data thereby provide the first evidence at an engram-specific level that fear attenuation may not be driven only by extinction learning, that is, by an inhibitory memory trace different from the original fear trace.
Rather, our findings indicate that during remote fear memory attenuation both mechanisms likely coexist, albeit with the importance of the continued activity of memory recall–induced neurons experimentally documented herein. Such activity may not only represent the capacity for a valence change in DG engram cells but also be a prerequisite for memory reconsolidation, namely, an opportunity for learning inside the original memory trace.
As such, this activity likely constitutes a physiological correlate sine qua non for effective exposure therapies against traumatic memories in humans: the engagement, rather than the suppression, of the original trauma.”
The researchers also provided examples of human trauma:
“We dedicate this work to O.K.’s father, Mohamed Salah El-Dien, and J.G.’s mother, Wilma, who both sadly passed away during its completion.”
So, how can this study help humans? The study had disclosed and undisclosed limitations:
1. Humans aren’t lab rats. We can ourselves individually change our responses to experiential causes of ongoing adverse effects. Standard methodologies can only apply external treatments.
2. It’s a bridge too far to go from neural activity in transgenic mice to expressing unfounded opinions on:
“A physiological correlate sine qua non for effective exposure therapies against traumatic memories in humans.”
Human exposure therapies have many drawbacks, in addition to being applied externally to the patient on someone else’s schedule. A few others were discussed in The role of DNMT3a in fear memories:
“Inability to generalize its efficacy over time,
Potential return of adverse memory in the new/novel contexts,
Context-dependent nature of extinction which is widely viewed as the biological basis of exposure therapy.”
3. Rodent neural activity also doesn’t elevate recall to become an important goal of effective human therapies. Clearly, what the rodents experienced should have been translated into human reliving/re-experiencing, not recall! Terminology used in animal studies preferentially has the same meaning with humans, since the purpose of animal studies is to help humans.
4. The researchers acknowledged that:
“Other brain areas such as the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala are likely to be implicated in remote fear memories and remain to be investigated.”
“The findings imply that in response to traumatic stress, some individuals, instead of activating the glutamate system to store memories, activate the extra-synaptic GABA system and form inaccessible traumatic memories.”
The study I curated yesterday, Organ epigenetic memory, demonstrated organ memory storage. It’s hard to completely rule out that other body areas may also store traumatic memories.
The wide range of epigenetic memory storage vehicles is one reason why effective human therapies need to address the whole person, the whole body, and each individual’s entire history.
This post has somehow become a target for spammers, and I’ve disabled comments. Readers can comment on other posts and indicate that they want their comment to apply here, and I’ll re-enable comments.
This 2018 Japanese review subject was the relationships of organ memory and non-communicable diseases:
“Organ memory is the engraved phenotype of altered organ responsiveness acquired by a time-dependent accumulation of organ stress responses. This phenomenon is known as “metabolic memory” or “legacy effect,” which is similar to neuronal and immune memory.
Not only is the epigenetic change of key genes involved in the formation of organ memory but the alteration of multiple factors, including low molecular weight energy metabolites, immune mediators, and tissue structures, is involved as well. These factors intercommunicate during every stress response and carry out incessant remodeling in a certain direction in a spiral fashion through positive feedback mechanisms.
The systematic review revealed that each intervention type, that is:
Glucose lowering,
Blood pressure lowering, or
LDL-cholesterol lowering,
possessed unique characteristics of the memory phenomenon. Most of the observational periods of these studies lasted for > 10 years. Memory phenomenon was suggested to last for a long time and is thought to have a considerable effect on the clinical course of NCDs [non-communicable diseases].
Organs cannot possess consciousness, so it might not be appropriate to consider whether a recalling process exists in organs. However, the properties of organs are incessantly altered by external stimuli loaded on organs as if it is updating.
It is clinically important to investigate whether organ memory can be updated by our behaviors. Once organ memory is established in an organ, organ memory in each organ can influence one another and affect organ memory in a different organ.
Epigenome-modification enzymes, such as histone deacetylases and DNA methyltransferases, and transcription factors seem to be essential for the epigenetic regulation of gene expression, which is involved in the generation of organ memory. Cellular metabolism can epigenetically modulate the expression of genes that are related to the progression of diseases.”
“Organs cannot possess consciousness, so it might not be appropriate to consider whether a recalling process exists in organs.”
Memory studies don’t require this consciousness to investigate even brain areas and functions. Researchers observe memory by measuring stimulus/response items like neuron activation and various levels of behavior. Consciousness is an emergent property.
2. Regarding recall: An organ’s “engraved phenotype of altered organ responsiveness” may not have recall itself, but it doesn’t have a separate existence apart from its body. An organ can’t be removed from its body for very long and still be part of its body.
When an organ is in its normal state as part of a body, it has access to recall-like functions via “inter-organ communication of organ memory.” The review also mentioned:
“Organ memory in each organ can influence one another and affect organ memory in a different organ.
Evolution didn’t support unnecessary duplication for a kidney’s memory to include recall because it’s part of a body that includes a brain that has recall. Evolution didn’t duplicate functions of a kidney’s memory in a brain, either.
This 2018 New York rodent study not only wasted resources but also speciously attempted to extrapolate animal study findings to humans:
“While it is clear that behavioralexperience modulates epigenetic profiles, it is less evident how the nature of that experience influences outcomes and whether epigenetic/genetic “biomarkers” could be extracted to classify different types of behavioral experience.
Male and female mice were subjected to either:
a Fixed Interval (FI) schedule of food reward, or
a single episode of forced swim followed by restraint stress, or
no explicit behavioral experience
after which global expression levels of two activating (H3K9ac and H3K4me3) and two repressive (H3K9me2 and H3k27me3) post-translational histone modifications (PTHMs), were measured in hippocampus (HIPP) and frontal cortex (FC).
A random subset of 5 of the 12 animals from each sex/behavioral experience group were used for these analyses. FC and HIPP were dissected from each of those 5 brains and homogenized for subsequent analyses. Thus, sample size for PTHM expression levels was n = 5 for each region/sex/behavioral treatment group and all PTHM expression level analyses utilized the homogenized tissue.
The specific nature of the behavioral experience differentiated profiles of PTHMs in a sex- and brain region-dependent manner, with all 4 PTHMs changing in parallel in response to different behavioral experiences. Global PTHMs may provide a higher-order pattern recognition function.”
The researchers knew or should have known that measuring “global expression levels” in “homogenized tissue” of “n = 5” subjects was flawed, and they did it anyway. They acknowledged some of the numerous study design defects with qualifiers such as:
“Even though these were global levels of histone modifications (and thus not indicative of changes at specific genes or sites on genes)..
As FS-RS behavioral experience was completed before FI behavioral experience, a longer overall post-behavior experience time (approximately 1 week) elapsed for this group, resulting in some differences in overall timing between these experiences and global PTHM assessment. However, extending the duration of the FS-RS experience (i.e., repeated exposures) would also have led to habituation..”
Did they purposely make these mistakes because of the “biomarkers”paradigm?
What would they have found if they had followed their judgments and training to design a better study? Experience-dependent histone modifications that differed by gender and brain region was certainly a promising research opportunity.
As for extrapolating the cited animal study findings to humans? Ummm..NO!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6060276/ “Different Behavioral Experiences Produce Distinctive Parallel Changes in, and Correlate With, Frontal Cortex and Hippocampal Global Post-translational Histone Levels”
It’s dawned on me that although links in blog posts are indexed by search engines, links in comments may not be. Here’s a post to elevate links in three comments that may have escaped notice.
“It is my view that all researchers have a narrow focus on what they want to research, without having an over-riding paradigm in which to fit the research and its results. Janovian Primal Therapy and theory, with its focus and understanding of the three different levels of consciousness would provide for a much needed over-arching paradigm, especially in the area of mental health.”
“You are right on. The Norcross survey, in particular, is utter crap. More than half of those “experts” surveyed were CBT therapists who knew nothing about PT and yet deemed themselves confident to judge “primal scream therapy” as “discredited.” I feel the therapy will never be understood for what it is.”
“There is of course, reversibility. Michael Meaney’s baby rats had their epigenetic changes reversed with loving maternal care. There are several compounds in development which have been shown to reverse methylation. This former physician and researcher says, “Epigenetic changes affect the level of activity of our genes. Genetic activity levels affect our emotions, beliefs, and our bodies. Exploring epigenetics and chronic illness may help us understand causes that many of us suspect have played a role in the onset and evolution of our illnesses. Furthermore, these epigenetic changes have been found to be reversible, at least some of the time, even with a seemingly indirect treatment such as psychotherapy.” Epigenetics and Chronic Illness: Why Symptoms May Be Reversible
So what gives? I suspect that your researcher is working with his/her head in the sand, hamstrung by their ideological biases. If CBT can effect epigenetic changes, imagine what primal therapy can do.”
And a seven-year anniversary repost of events that affect me every day:
This 2017 UC Irvine human review subject provided details of how fetalhypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal components and systems develop, and how they are epigenetically changed by the mother’s environment:
“The developmental origins of disease or fetal programming model predicts that intrauterine exposures have life-long consequences for physical and psychological health. Prenatal programming of the fetal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is proposed as a primary mechanism by which early experiences are linked to later disease risk.
Development of the fetal HPA axis is determined by an intricately timed cascade of endocrine events during gestation and is regulated by an integrated maternal-placental-fetal steroidogenic unit. Mechanisms by which stress-induced elevations in hormones of maternal, fetal, or placental origin influence the structure and function of the emerging fetal HPA axis are discussed.
Human gestational physiology and fetal HPA axis development differ even from that of closely related nonhuman primates, thereby limiting the generalizability of animal models. This review will focus solely on studies of prenatal stress and fetal HPA axis development in humans.”
1. Every time I read a prenatal study I’m in awe of all that has to go right – and at the appropriate times and sequences – for a fetus to be undamaged. Add in what needs to happen at birth, during infancy, and throughout early childhood, and it seems impossible for any human to escape epigenetic damage.
2. The reviewers referenced animal studies and human research performed with postnatal subjects, despite the disclaimer:
This review will focus solely on studies of prenatal stress and fetal HPA axis development in humans.”
This led to blurring of what had been studied or not with human fetuses regarding the subject.
3. These reviewers uncritically listed many dubious human studies that had both stated and undisclosed severe limitations on their findings. Other reviewers offer informed analysis of cited studies, as Sex-specific impacts of childhood trauma summarized with cortisol:
“Findings are dependent upon variance in extenuating factors, including but not limited to, different measurements of:
presence and severity of psychopathology symptomology.”
4. The paper would have been better had it stayed on topic with its title “Developmental origins of the human hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.” Let other reviews cover animals, post-natal humans, and questionable evidence.
5. I asked the reviewers to provide a searchable file to facilitate using their work as a reference.
This 2018 US government rodent study used extreme dosages to achieve its directed goals of demonizing nicotine and extolling the biomarker paradigm:
“This study examined whether adolescent nicotine exposure alters adult hippocampus-dependent learning, involving persistent changes in hippocampal DNA methylation and if choline, a dietary methyl donor, would reverse and mitigate these alterations.
Mice were chronically treated with nicotine (12.6mg/kg/day) starting at post-natal day 23 (pre-adolescent), p38 (late adolescent), or p54 (adult) for 12 days followed by a 30-day period during which they consumed either standard chow or chow supplemented with choline (9g/kg).
Our gene expression analyses support this model and point to two particular genes involved in chromatin remodeling, Smarca2 and Bahcc1. Both Smarca2 and Bahcc1 showed a similar inverse correlation pattern between promoter methylation and gene expression.
Our findings support a role for epigenetic modification of hippocampal chromatin remodeling genes in long-term learning deficits induced by adolescent nicotine and their amelioration by dietary choline supplementation.”
Let’s use the average weight of a US adult male – published by the US Centers for Disease Control as 88.8 kg – to compare the study’s dosages with human equivalents:
Nicotine at ((“12.6mg/kg/day” x .081) x 88.8 kg) = 90.6 mg.
Neither of these dosages are even remotely connected to human realities:
The human-equivalent dosage of nicotine used in this study would probably kill an adult human before the end of 12 days.
What effects would an adult human suffer from exceeding the choline “Tolerable Upper Intake Level” BY 18 TIMES for 30 days?
Isn’t the main purpose of animal studies to help humans? What’s the justification for performing animal studies simply to promote an agenda?
A funding source of this study was National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Identification of Biomarkers for Nicotine Addiction award (T-DA-1002 MG). Has the biomarker paradigm been institutionalized to the point where research proposals that don’t have biomarkers as goals aren’t funded?
This 2018 Chinese study electronically modeled the brain’s circuits to evaluate memory transfer mechanisms:
“During non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep, thalamo-cortical spindles and hippocampal sharp wave-ripples have been implicated in declarative memory consolidation. Evidence suggests that long-term memory consolidation is coordinated by the generation of:
enabling memory transfer from the hippocampus to the cortex.
Consolidation has also been demonstrated in other brain tasks, such as:
In the acquisition of motor skills, where there is a shift from activity in prefrontal cortex to premotor, posterior parietal, and cerebellar structures; and
In the transfer of conscious to unconscious tasks, where activity in initial unskilled tasks and activity in skilled performance are located in different regions, the so-called ‘scaffolding-storage’ framework.
By separating a neural circuit into a feedforward chain of gating populations and a second chain coupled to the gating chain (graded chain), graded information (i.e. information encoded in firing rate amplitudes) may be faithfully propagated and processed as it flows through the circuit. The neural populations in the gating chain generate pulses, which push populations in the graded chain above threshold, thus allowing information to flow in the graded chain.
In this paper, we will describe how a set of previously learned synapses may in turn be copied to another module with a pulse-gated transmission paradigm that operates internally to the circuit and is independent of the learning process.”
The study had neither been peer-reviewed, nor were the mechanisms tested in living beings.
“Genome-wide technology has facilitated epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS), permitting ‘hypothesis-free’ examinations in relation to adversity and/or mental health problems. Results of EWAS are in fact conditional on several a priori hypotheses:
EWAS coverage is sufficient for complex psychiatric problems;
Peripheral tissue is meaningful for mental health problems; and
The assumption that biology can be informative to the phenotype.
1. CpG sites were chosen as potentially biologically informative based on consultation with a consortium of DNA methylation experts. Selection was, in part, based on data from a number of phenotypes (some medical in nature such as cancer), and thus is not specifically targeted to brain-based, stress-related complex mental health phenotypes.
2. The assumption is often that distinct peripheral tissues are interchangeable and equally suited for biomarker detection, when in fact it is highly probable that peripheral tissues themselves correspond differently to environmental adversity and/or disease state.
3. Analyses result in general statements such as ‘neurodevelopment’ or the ‘immune system’ being involved in the aetiology of a given phenotype. Whether these broad categories play indeed a substantial role in the aetiology of the mental health problem is often hard to determine given the post hoc nature of the interpretation.”
The reviewers mentioned in item #2 the statistical flaw of assuming that measured entities are interchangeable with one another. They didn’t mention that the problem also affected item #1 methodologies of averaging CpG methylation measurements in fixed genomic bins or over defined genomic regions, as discussed in:
The reviewers offered suggestions for reducing the impacts of these three hypotheses. But will doing more of the same, only better, advance science?
Was it too much to ask of researchers whose paychecks and reputations depended on a framework’s paradigm – such as the “biomarker” mentioned a dozen and a half times – to admit the uselessness of gathering data when the framework in which the data operated wasn’t viable? They already knew or should have known this.
“When phenotypic variation results from alleles that modify phenotypic variance rather than the mean, this link between genotype and phenotype will not be detected.”
“Blood-based EWAS may yield limited information relating to underlying pathological processes for disorders where brain is the primary tissue of interest.”
The truth about complex traits and GWAS added another example of how this framework and many of its paradigms haven’t produced effective explanations of “the aetiology of the mental health problem”
“The most investigated candidate gene hypotheses of schizophrenia are not well supported by genome-wide association studies, and it is likely that this will be the case for other complex traits as well.”
Researchers need to reevaluate their framework if they want to make a difference in their fields. Recasting GWAS as EWAS won’t make it more effective.
This 2018 Texas human review subject was prostate cancer epigenetics:
“We comprehensively review the up-to-date roles of epigenetics in the development and progression of prostate cancer. We especially focus on three epigenetic mechanisms: DNA methylation, histone modifications, and noncoding RNAs. We elaborate on current models/theories that explain the necessity of these epigenetic programs in driving the malignant phenotypes of prostate cancer cells.
It is now generally accepted that epigenetics contributes to the development of nearly every stage of PCa [prostate cancer]. Considering the highly heterogeneous nature of PCa, it is quite likely that [the] effect of a particular epigenetic pattern on growth of cancer cells varies from case to case and [is] context specific.
Restoration of a “normal” epigenetic landscape holds promise as a cure for prostate cancer.”
The review’s Epigenetic Therapy section explained much of what’s going on in the above graphic. Its Table 3 was instructive for up-to-date clinical trial information on epigenetic treatments of prostate cancer.
“Restoration of a “normal” epigenetic landscape” won’t guarantee a healthy outcome once diseases start. Prevention seems desirable to avoid the situation where:
“Numerous epigenetic alterations reinforce the establishment of a context-specific transcriptional profile that favors self-renewal, survival, and invasion of PCa cells.”
Surface Your Real Self 