PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 25-Jul-2014 Contact: Dipali Pathak pathak@bcm.edu 713-798-4710 Baylor College of Medicine Houston -- Cancer has long been thought to be primarily a genetic disease, but in recent decades scientists have come to believe that epigenetic changes which don't change the DNA sequence but how it is 'read' also play a role in cancer. In particular DNA methylation, the addition of a methyl group (or molecule), is an epigenetic switch that can stably turn off genes, suggesting the potential to cause cancer just as a genetic mutation can. Until now, however, direct evidence that DNA methylation drives cancer formation was lacking. Researchers at the USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital have now created a mouse model providing the first in vivo evidence that epigenetic alterations alone can cause cancer. Their report appears today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. "We knew that epigenetic changes are associated with cancer, but didn't know whether these were a cause or consequence of cancer. Developing this new approach for 'epigenetic engineering' allowed us to test whether DNA methylation changes alone can drive cancer," said Dr. Lanlan Shen, associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor and senior … Continue reading →