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Current Status of Epigenetic Drugs in Cancer Treatment
Chen Delin, Jiang Kuntai, He Ning, Zhao Wei*
Key Laboratory of Steam Cells and Tissue Engineering Ministry of Education of China, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China
Abstract: Mutations in epigenetic regulatory genes are common in human cancers. The change of epigenetic proteins will lead to at least four consequences: DNA promoter hypermethylation， genome-wide DNA hypomethylation， abnormal histone and histone modification， and abnormal chromatin structures. With the inhibitors of the abnormal epigenetic factors， such as DNA methylation enzymes， histone modification enzymes， therapeutic strategies are now being developed to target cancers with epigenetic gene mutations. So far， epigenetic drugs showed an encouraging curative effect in many tumors treatment. More epigenetic drugs are now being tested in several clinical trials. In this review， we present recent advances in epigenetic drug development and future directions in this area.
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