A fluorescence-based cellular assay system was established to identify potential epigenetic modulator ligands. This assay method is to detect the de-repression of an EGFP reporter in cancer cells by the treatment of HDAC (histone deacetylase) or DNMT (DNA methyltransferase) inhibitor. Using this system, we conducted a preliminary screening of in-house natural product library containing extracts...

Background: Previous studies have suggested a causative role for agonists of the aromatic hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) in the etiology of breast cancer 1, early-onset (BRCA-1)–silenced breast tumors, for which prospects for treatment remain poor. Objectives: We investigated the regulation of BRCA1 by the soy isoflavone genistein (GEN) in human estrogen receptor a (ERa)–positive Michigan Cancer Fo...

Aberrant DNA methylation patterns are one of the most studied epigenetic components in cancer development. In certain cancers, altered expression of DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) family members could potentially cause this DNA methylation re-patterning. Specifically, DNMT3B has over thirty different isoforms with varied expression in tissues (Ostler et al. 2007). Recent studies have shown that D...