[DNA methylation: an epigenetic mechanism for tumorigenesis]

Abstract

DNA methylation is a kind of epigenetic modification in human genome. Both hypermethylation of tumor suppressor gene or DNA repair gene and hypomethylation of repetitious DNA are closely related to different kinds of tumors. Loss of imprinting can also cause tumorigenesis. The recent study confirmed that the level of DNA methylation in genome was not only affected by DNA methyltransferase(DNMT), but also by other factors such as histone modification, diet and environment and RNA interference, etc. DNA methylation has an important role in transcriptional regulation, together with histone modification and chromatin remodeling.