Dna And Histone Methylation In Lung Cancer

Oncogenesis is driven by the accumulation of genetic and epigenetic alterations that result in dysregulation of key oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, and DNA repair/housekeeping genes. One of the major clinical needs is the discovery and clinical validation of new molecular biomarkers using non- or minimally invasive procedures to assist early diagnosis, prognosis and prediction of response to treatment. Histone methylation has profound effects on nuclear functions such as transcriptional regulation, maintenance of genome integrity and epigenetic inheritance. On the other hand, aberrant DNA methylation can be detected in several biological fluids of patients and could be served as a potential tumor biomarker. In the present chapter we describe latest developments on histone and DNA methylation based biomarkers in Lung cancer.