Epigenetic Biomarkers in Head and Neck Cancer？ - Epigenetic Biomarkers in Head and Neck Cancer？ - Open Access Pub

Head and neck cancers (HNCs) are the most prevalent and aggressive type of cancers. Genetic, epigenetic, environmental and viral risk-factors are associated with HNC carcinogenesis. Persistent infection of oncogenic human papillomaviruses (HR-HPVs) represent distinct biological, molecular and epigenetic entities in HNCs. There are three main epigenetic mechanisms that regulate transcription, these are DNA methylation, histone modifications and alteration in non-coding RNA networks, which can dissected to identify innovative and accurate epigenetic biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis of HNC patients. Due to the lacunae of accurate distinctive biomarkers for the definite diagnosis of HNC, the identification of predictive epigenetic markers is necessary that might modify or increase HNC patient’s survival. In this mini review, we briefly summarize the current knowledge of different epigenetic biomarkers in HNC. DOI10.14302/issn.2572-3030.jcgb-18-2428 Head and neck cancers (HNCs) are the 6th most common and heterogenous group of malignancies with about 780,000 new cases being diagnosed every year and more than 350,000 deaths reported annually 1.Head and neck carcinogenesis is mainly caused by chronic use of tobacco products, excessive alcohol intake and persistent infection with oncogenic human papillomaviruses (HR-HPVs). HPV-positive HNCs represent distinct biological, molecular entities in comparison to the HPV-negative and tobacco induced HNCs. HR-HPV infection significantly effect HNC prognosis. The HPV infected HNC patients are mainly non-tobacco smoking, younger age population with better prognosis than those with HPV-negative HNC patients 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. These strong evidences establish the distinct molecular and clinical role of HPV as a unique viral biomarker for HNC diagnosis and prognosis. These distinct entities can be due to epimutations inspiring further investigation on molecular and epigenetic modifications to modify HNC patient’s outcome. It seems that HNC is as much a disease of misdirected epigenetic factors as that of genetic factors, which has emerged into one of the “hallmarks of cancers”. Various scientific studies have suggested that epigenetic alterations such as DNA methylation and the post translational modifications of histone proteins and/or mis-expression of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), are frequently associated with initiation, progression, differentiation and drug resistance in HNCs 7.Therefore, these epigenetic markers are emerging as important and reliable tools for early diagnosis and prognosis of HNC. In addition,