Boumber and Issa provide a useful review of the development of agents that target the epigenome—primarily DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) inhibitors and histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors. The authors provide a summary of agents approved for clinical use: the DNMT inhibitors azacitidine (Vidaza) and decitabine (Dacogen), and the HDAC inhibitors vorinostat (Zolinza) and romidepsin (Istodax). In ...

Docetaxel is an effective chemotherapy drug to treat breast cancer but the underlying molecular mechanisms of drug resistance are not fully understood. DNA methylation is an epigenetic event, involved in the control of gene expression, which is known to play an important role in cancer and chemotherapy drug resistance. To investigate the role of DNA methylation in docetaxel resistance in breast...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been suggested to repress transcription via binding the 3'-untranslated regions of mRNAs. However, the involvement and details of miRNA-mediated epigenetic regulation, particularly in targeting genomic DNA and mediating epigenetic regulation, remain largely uninvestigated. In the present study, transcription factor CCAAT/enhancer binding protein delta (CEBPD) was respons...

PURPOSE Three genes, namely DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) 1, DNMT3A, and DNMT3B, coding for DNMTs that affect promoter methylation status are thought to play an important role in the development of cancers. Little is known of the biological and clinical significance of these genes in human breast cancer. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN We used real-time reverse transcription-PCR assays to quantify the mRN...

Methylation of DNA and histone proteins are mutually involved in the epigenetic regulation of gene expression mediated by DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) and histone methyltransferases (HMTs). DNMTs methylate cytosine residues within gene promoters, whereas HMTs catalyze the transfer of methyl groups to lysine and arginine residues of histone proteins, thus causing chromatin condensation and tra...

BACKGROUND Altered gene methylation, regulated by DNA methyltransferases (DNMT) 1, 3a and 3b, contributes to tumorigenesis. However, the role of DNMT in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains unknown. METHODS Expression of DNMT 1, 3a and 3b was detected in 88 Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and 10 normal tissue samples by immunohistochemistry. Changes in cell viability, cell ...

We determined the mechanism of severity during type 1 diabetic (T1D) stroke (ischemia-reperfusion [IR] injury) that affects potential markers associated with epigenetics, neuronal, glial, and vascular components of the brain with regard to nondiabetic stroke. The study used male genetic T1D Ins2(+/-) Akita and wild-type (C57BL/6J) mice. The experimental mice groups were 1) sham, 2) IR, 3) sham(...

BACKGROUND Cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs) have been proven suitable for stem cell therapy after myocardial infarction, especially c-kit(+)CPCs. CPCs marker c-kit and its ligand, the stem cell factor (SCF), are linked as c-kit/SCF axis, which is associated with the functions of proliferation and differentiation. In our previous study, we found that stromal cell-derived factor-1α (SDF-1α) could ...