Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
Epigenetics. 2011 Jul;6(7):849-52. doi: 10.4161/epi.6.7.16314.
Colon and rectal cancer (colorectal cancer, CRC) is the third most common cancer worldwide. Deaths from CRC account for around 8% of all cancer deaths, making it the fourth most common cause of death from cancer. The high mortality rate of colon cancer is mainly attributable to its metastasis. Efforts have been made to identify metastasis suppressor genes, which encode proteins responsible for inhibiting the metastasis but not suppressing the growth of primary tumors. Studies on metastasis suppressor genes demonstrated that epigenetic modifications, such as DNA promoter methylation and histone modification, play crucial roles in regulating the expression of many metastasis suppressor genes, which indicates the association between aberrant epigenetic alterations and cancer metastasis. This review will focus on the recent findings regarding metastasis suppressors regulated by epigenetic modifications, particularly DNA methylation and histone modification, in CRC metastasis. Also discussed will be recent progress on the suppression of CRC metastasis by genistein, a soy isoflavone, with a focus on epigenetic mechanisms.
结肠癌和直肠癌（结直肠癌，CRC）是全球第三大常见癌症。CRC 导致的死亡约占所有癌症死亡人数的 8%，是癌症死亡的第四大常见原因。结肠癌高死亡率主要归因于其转移。人们一直在努力寻找转移抑制基因，这些基因编码的蛋白质负责抑制转移，但不抑制原发性肿瘤的生长。转移抑制基因的研究表明，表观遗传修饰，如 DNA 启动子甲基化和组蛋白修饰，在调节许多转移抑制基因的表达中起着关键作用，这表明异常的表观遗传改变与癌症转移之间存在关联。这篇综述将重点介绍最近关于 CRC 转移中受表观遗传修饰（特别是 DNA 甲基化和组蛋白修饰）调控的转移抑制因子的研究进展。同时还将讨论大豆异黄酮金雀异黄素通过表观遗传机制抑制 CRC 转移的最新进展。
