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Our current Study emphasized on Ovarian carcinoma, which has emerged as one of the most common cancer in females in recent times. One of the major problem of ovarian cancer is that it is difficult to be detected in the early stages of the disease. Many factors play a role in the development of ovarian cancer like environmental imbalance, lifestyle changes and changes in genetics of an individual. Screening of this disease is difficult in early stages due to lack of proper screening technique and ambiguous symptoms that can be often confused with non cancerous conditions. However some epigenetic markers are studied in disease which helps to understand the disease progression. Alteration in expression of genes without an observed alteration in primary sequence of DNA is referred as epigenetics. There is alteration in gene expression due to such epigenetic factors. Numerous studies showed the role of DNA methylation, histone modification and noncoding RNAs as an epigenetic factor in ovarian cancer. The difference in these epigenetic factors between a normal cell and cancerous cell makes it possible to use these as markers for detection of the disease. One of the important factor of epigenetics is convertible and it is genetically inherited. Some of the epigenetic marker in ovarian cancer cells include changes in DNA methylation, histone modifications and small noncoding microRNAs (miRNA). Malignancy can be a consequence of aberrant expression of these epigenetic markers and alteration of gene and cellular function due to these abnormal expression. An important marker mainly in cancer cell that indicates silencing, point mutations and deletions in tumor suppressor genes are hypomethylation and hypermethylation of promoters in CpG region. The abnormality of epigenetic factors shown by early tumor cells makes it different from normal cells. Alteration of tumor suppressor gene is showcased in ovarian cancer where the gene is methylated and ultimately it lose its function. Histone undergoes modification like acetylation, deacetylation, methylation and demethylation. Histone acetylation is regulated by HATs and HDACs. Epigenetic marker like miRNA serves as a detection tool in cancer cells. Some miRNA like miR-200a, miR-200c, miR-200b, and miR-141 when overexpressed acts as a marker for ovarian cancer. Thus, the current study portrays promising therapeutic targets based on epigenetic modification that can help in preventing ovarian cancer.
Keywords: Carcinoma, DNA Methylation, miRNA, Epigenetics, Histone Modification