EPIGENETICS IN CANCER: TRANSLATING MOLECULAR MECHANISMS INTO TARGETED THERAPIES

Abstract

Even nowadays cancer remains one of the most frequent causes of death and diseases all over the world. That is due to epigenetics and genetic changes that are caused by genetic mutations which regulate the expression of genes, but do not alter the sequence of DNA.  The most significant tumour starting factors include DNA methylation, changes in histone and non-coding RNAs among others.The paper takes a closer view of the molecular basis of epigenetic regulation in cancer and evaluates the prospect of such epigenetic treatments to become real-life.  Studying the gene silencing and activation processes example by example, the work demonstrates the impact of changes in the DNA methylation patterns, the architecture of histone modifications, and non-coding RNA profiles on them.  We even examined the efficacy of targeted epigenetic drugs in effecting various cancerous cells and within various treatment environments. These are DNA methyltransferase inhibitors (DNMTis), histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACis) and EZH2 inhibitors.The findings indicate that certain epigenetic drugs are quite effective in activating the tumour suppressor genes switched off and inhibiting cancer-causing pathways.  Case studies reveal that the administration of epigenetic medicines alone or in combination could increase the rate of survival, reduce the amount of tumours, and make the tumours sensitive to chemotherapy and immunotherapy.  Nevertheless, these drugs cannot be applied in most clinical scenarios due to issues such as acquired resistance, off-target toxicity, the unconsciousness of prognostic biomarkers.To conclude, epigenetic medicines are a turning point, and reversible method of treating cancer, and that it may be customized to the unique epigenome of an individual.  We should continue to study the discovery of biomarkers, combination approaches, and epigenetic editing of the next generations to make the best use of epigenetic therapy in oncology.