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Pediatric cancer epigenome and the influence of folate


Despite improvement in clinical treatment of childhood cancer, it remains the leading cause of disease-related mortality in children with survivors often suffering from treatment-related toxicity and premature death. Because childhood cancer is vastly different from cancer in adults, a thorough understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms specific to childhood cancer is essential. Although childhood cancer contains much fewer mutations, a subset of cancer subtypes has a higher frequency of mutations in gene encoding epigenetic regulators. Thus, in this review, we will focus on epigenetic deregulations in childhood cancers, the use of genome-wide analysis for cancer subtype classification, prediction of clinical outcomes and the influence of folate on epigenetic mechanisms.

Click here to view the full article in Epigenomics.