Epigenome analysis of cancer

本研究的目的是明确去甲基化药物对骨髓增生异常综合征(MDS)患者的影响。到目前为止，我们已经从4名MDS患者(2名RCMD患者和2名RAEB-2患者)以及两名健康供体(商业产品)中构建了启动子甲基组。来自两个不同亚型的样本聚集在一起，DNA甲基化分析似乎可以作为有用的诊断方法。我们发现，在两种肿瘤类型之间甲基化的一组识别基因中，转录因子存在巨大的过度表达。已鉴定的大多数其他基因也可以被认为具有调节功能，许多编码与信号转导有关的蛋白质的基因，以及一些microRNA基因。我们还观察了与这些基因集相关的生物过程。在大多数分析中，我们发现与各种发育过程相关的基因有更大的过度表达，许多基因涉及神经系统发育。

The purpose of this study is to specify the effect of de-methylating agents on myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) patients. So far, we have constructed promoter methylomes from 4 MDS patients (2 with RCMD and 2 with RAEB-2), as well as that from two healthy donors (commercial products). Samples from the two different subtypes clustered together, and it seems likely that DNA methylation analysis could serve as a useful diagnostic. We found an enormous over-representation of transcription factors within sets of identified genes differentially methylated between the two tumor types. Most other genes identified could also be considered to have regulatory functions with many genes encoding proteins involved in signal transduction, as well as a number of microRNA genes. We also looked at biological process associated with these gene sets. For most analyses we found an even more enormous over-representation of genes associated with various developmental processes, with many genes involved in nervous system development.