Cancer is nowadays considered to be both a genetic and an epigenetic disease. The most well studied epigenetic modification in humans is DNA methylation; however it becomes increasingly acknowledged that DNA methylation does not work alone, but rather is linked to other modifications, such as histone modifications. Epigenetic abnormalities are reversible and as a result novel therapies that wor...

Over the past few years several drugs that target epigenetic modifications have shown clinical benefits, thus seemingly validating epigenetic cancer therapy. More recently, however, it has become clear that these drugs are either characterized by low specificity or that their target enzymes have low substrate specificity. As such, clinical proof-of-concept for epigenetic cancer therapies remain...

Epigenetic modifications, such as acetylation, phosphorylation, methylation, ubiquitination, and ADP ribosylation, of the highly conserved core histones, H2A, H2B, H3, and H4, influence the genetic potential of DNA. The enormous regulatory potential of histone modification is illustrated in the vast array of epigenetic markers found throughout the genome. More than the other types of histone mo...

The reverse engineering of gene regulatory network (GRN) is an important problem in systems biology. While gene expression data provide a main source of insights, other types of data are needed to elucidate the structure and dynamics of gene regulation. Epigenetic data (e.g., histone modification) show promise to provide more insights into gene regulation and on epigenetic implication in biolog...

Epigenetic modifications affect gene expression and thereby govern a wide range of biological processes such as differentiation, development and tumorigenesis. Recent initiatives to define genome-wide DNA methylation and histone modification profiles by microarray and sequencing methods have led to the construction of databases. These databases are repositories for international epigenetic cons...

Epigenetic silencing is critical for maintaining germline stem cells in Drosophila ovaries. However, it remains unclear how the differentiation factor, Bag-of-marbles (Bam), counteracts transcriptional silencing. We found that the trimethylation of lysine 36 on histone H3 (H3K36me3), a modification that is associated with gene activation, is enhanced in Bam-expressing cells. H3K36me3 levels wer...

Research concerning the epigenome over the years has systematically and sequentially shown substantial development and we have moved from global inhibition of modifications of the epigenome toward identification and targeted therapy against tumor-specific epigenetic mechanisms. In accordance with this approach, several drugs with epigenetically modulating activity have received considerable att...