Cancer genes hypermethylated in human embryonic stem cells.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 18820729.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0003294 and PMC identifier 2546447.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Developmental genes are silenced in embryonic stem cells by a bivalent histone-based chromatin mark. It has been proposed that this mark also confers a predisposition to aberrant DNA promoter hypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes (TSGs) in cancer. We report here that silencing of a significant proportion of these TSGs in human embryonic and adult stem cells is associated with promoter DNA hypermethylation. Our results indicate a role for DNA methylation in the control of gene expression in human stem cells and suggest that, for genes repressed by promoter hypermethylation in stem cells in vivo, the aberrant process in cancer could be understood as a defect in establishing an unmethylated promoter during differentiation, rather than as an anomalous process of de novo hypermethylation.
Medical subject headings
- DNA Methylation
- Embryonic Stem Cells
- Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental
- Neoplasms