Rosyln and Leslie Goldstein Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, NY 10461, USA,.
Cancers (Basel). 2011 Sep 13;3(3):3525-56. doi: 10.3390/cancers3033525.
Recent advances have begun to elucidate how epigenetic regulatory mechanisms are responsible for establishing and maintaining cell identity during development and adult life and how the disruption of these processes is, not surprisingly, one of the hallmarks of cancer. In this review, we describe the major epigenetic mechanisms (i.e., DNA methylation, histone and chromatin modification, non-coding RNA deployment, RNA editing, and nuclear reorganization) and discuss the broad spectrum of epigenetic alterations that have been uncovered in pediatric and adult nervous system tumors. We also highlight emerging evidence that suggests epigenetic deregulation is a characteristic feature of so-called cancer stem cells (CSCs), which are thought to be present in a range of nervous system tumors and responsible for tumor maintenance, progression, treatment resistance, and recurrence. We believe that better understanding how epigenetic mechanisms operate in neural cells and identifying the etiologies and consequences of epigenetic deregulation in tumor cells and CSCs, in particular, are likely to promote the development of enhanced molecular diagnostics and more targeted and effective therapeutic agents for treating recalcitrant nervous system tumors.
近年来的研究进展开始阐明表观遗传调控机制如何在发育和成年期负责建立和维持细胞特性，以及这些过程的破坏如何成为癌症的特征之一。在这篇综述中，我们描述了主要的表观遗传机制（即 DNA 甲基化、组蛋白和染色质修饰、非编码 RNA 部署、RNA 编辑和核重排），并讨论了在儿科和成人神经系统肿瘤中发现的广泛的表观遗传改变。我们还强调了新出现的证据表明，表观遗传失调是所谓的癌症干细胞（CSC）的一个特征，这些细胞被认为存在于多种神经系统肿瘤中，并负责肿瘤的维持、进展、治疗抵抗和复发。我们相信，更好地了解表观遗传机制在神经细胞中的作用，以及识别肿瘤细胞和 CSC 中表观遗传失调的病因和后果，很可能会促进增强分子诊断和更有针对性和有效的治疗药物的开发，以治疗难治性神经系统肿瘤。
