Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty Of Medicine - Department Of Clinical and Chemical Pathology

Data suggested that cancer appears to be a process that is fuelled both by genetic alterations and by epigenetic mechanisms Epigenetics refer to the study of changes in gene expression that can be mitotically inherited , but is not associated with the changes in the coding sequence of the affected genes The DNA methylation in the promoter regions is a powerful epigenetic mechanism for the suppression of gene activity Hypomethylation and hypermethylation are the two kinds of methylation defect that is observed in a wide variety of malignancies Hypomethylation is common in solid tumors such as metastatic hepatocellular cancer , in cervical cancer , prostate tumors , and also in hematological malignancies such as B - cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia A large number of genes involving fundamental cellular pathways may be affected by aberrant CpG island methylation in association with transcriptional silencing in virtually all tumor types

Issued also as CD