Epigenetics and Human Disease

The epigenetics research tradition in human diseases has been rather weak thus far. Epigenetic factors have been investigated only when their role was evident from epidemological, cytogenetic, or other type of studies. The best example is the rare pediatric diseases that are often caused by 

Apart from DNA methylation studies, the second aspect of epigenetic misregulation involves disruption of histone acetylation and chromatin structure. Functional disruption of some HATs genes (such as the CBP and p300) is detected in some cancers, most notably, acute pro-myelocytic leukemia (51). This has lead to the hope that HD AC inhibitors will be useful for the treatment of this disease and a number of inhibitors are currently being assessed in clinical trials (see below). 

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