Histone modification and DNA methylation relationship in transcription silencing of cancer associated genes

Project leader: Tomáš Krivulčík
Project duration: 2013 - 2016

Epigenetic events in cancer cells are important goals of present cancer research. The recent results indicated that in addition to DNA hypermethylation of promoter sequences also histone modifications changes co-participate in inhibition of gene transcription. Moreover, alterated histone code alone may cause a gene silencing. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of histone modification patterns and DNA methylation profiles in silencing of cancer associated genes using the cancer cell line model. We have supposed that our results will contribute to clarify the DNA methylation dependent or independent function of histone modifications in epigenetic silencing of tumour suppressor genes in cancer cells. This knowledge may lead to the identification of novel epigenetic markers based on specific histone modification patterns that could be clinically utilized for more effective diagnostics, determination of prognosis and therapy of cancer.

Publications