Comprehensiveness of epigenetic studies of cancer – how much information do we need?
It will be important to conduct a genome-scale analysis of domains of epigenetic change at the local level, in gene groups or clusters, and globally. A genome-wide screen for DNA methylation changes would avoid the bias from candidate gene studies; on the other hand, the data set from a single region would allow us to study all epigenetic features, and determine how they relate to each other. There were conflicting opinions on which approach would be most valuable at this time. It will be necessary to investigate the functional significance of specific epigenetic marks in order to better understand how to resolve this question. It is important to determine the relationship between hypomethylation and gene activation, as there are several examples of loss of methylation linked to new gene expression and cancer. Before demethylating agents become widely used to treat cancers, this question must be addressed. The relationship of epigenetic changes to histone modifications is also importan
