From
our author K. John Morrow some disturbing news and also a sense of where may be
in the future for epigenetics.. “There are two deeply disturbing
properties of epigenetic inheritance that have been receiving much attention of
late,” Morrow says. “The first is the ability of certain classes of
chemicals to cause epigenetic changes that can be transmitted transgenerationally.
The second is the propensity of genetically stable tumor cells to display great
epigenetic variation, driving their evolution and malignancy.”
Morrow,
author of Kalorama’s Epigenetics market research report notes that.
Manikkam et al [PLOS ONE 7(9):e46249] report that Dioxin, a potent epimutagen,
can induce multiple adult onset disease in the F3 generation when administered
to gestating female rats. In another important study Ujvari and coworkers (Proc Biol Sci. 2012 Nov 7. [Epub ahead of print]) find that a
bizarre transmissable facial cancer in the Tasmanian Devil, although
genomically stable, undergoes extensive epigenetic changes that drive its
tumorigenicity. Because of this variability the tumors evolves over time, and
these changes can be transmitted to other animals through bodily contact. This
rare marsupial has been pushed to the edge of extinction by this cancer.
"Connecting
these two sets of observations, it seems highly possible that exposure of human
populations to epimutagenic agents could induce rapidly evolving and extremely
lethal cancers. Moreover, it is also possible that subsequent generations could
inherit this genetic alteration."
Epigenetic
investigations have focused largely on use of therapies that target methylation
site next to controller elements of various oncogenes, as described in a recent
Kalorama report. There is a high probability that combining epigenetic drugs
with conventional therapies could stop tumor growth and at the same time slow
down the uncontrolled variability of cancer that enables it to outrun
therapeutic intervention.
At the
same time, there is a pressing need for studies that investigate the role of
environmental epimutagens in driving disease in both animal and human
populations.
