がんの科学と治療

Gene Silencing – Targeting at Gene Methylation and Demethylation Patterns for the Arrest of Cancer Progression

Abstract

Rekha Govindan, Sourabh Suran and Sanjeeva Metikala

The sudden occurrence or silent recurrence of tumor has been found to result from long term molecular changes at DNA level, that eventually lead to the abnormal expansion of cancer cells. One such molecular change is accounted by a distinct promoter DNA hyper-methylation pattern in certain tumor suppressing genes that are usually the check points for the regulation of gene expression in normal and progenitor cells. The hyper methylated promoter regions may account for the transcriptional inactiveness of the tumor suppressor genes. This possibility, coupled with the reversible nature of epigenetics such as demethylation has enormous significance for the prevention and control of cancer. In such circumstances, the use of demethylating drugs may re-express those genes that were silenced by aberrant DNA methylation. Understanding these epigenetic changes may help in developing specific markers to identify the molecular pathways of tumorigenesis and for deriving sensitive molecular detection strategies for a variety of tumor type.