Epigenetic Contributions to the Relationship between Cancer and Dietary Intake of Nutrients, Bioactive Food Components, and Environmental Toxicants

Abstract

Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression that occur without a change in DNA sequence. Cancer is a multistep process derived from combinational crosstalk between genetic alterations and epigenetic influences through various environmental factors. The observation that epigenetic changes are reversible makes them an attractive target for cancer prevention. Until recently, there have been difficulties studying epigenetic mechanisms in interactions between dietary factors and environmental toxicants. The development of the field of cancer epigenetics during the past decade has been advanced rapidly by genome-wide technologies – which initially employed microarrays but increasingly are using high-throughput sequencing – which helped to improve the quality of the analysis, increase the capacity of sample throughput, and reduce the cost of assays. It is particularly true for applications of cancer epigenetics in epidemiologic studies that examine the relationship among diet, epigenetics, and cancer because of the issues of tissue heterogeneity, the often limiting amount of DNA samples, and the significant cost of the analyses. This review offers an overview of the state of the science in nutrition, environmental toxicants, epigenetics, and cancer to stimulate further exploration of this important and developing area of science. Additional epidemiologic research is needed to clarify the relationship between these complex epigenetic mechanisms and cancer.

Obesity and Inflammation: Epidemiology, Risk Factors, and Markers of Inflammation

“…Actually in Mexico and others countries, more than one-third of cancer deaths can be avoided through dietary modification. Different mechanisms, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antiestrogenic processes, have been proposed to explain the protective nature of certain dietary components [21]. …”

Epigenetics: An Innovative Approach for Biotechnology and Food Science

“…In the first proposed mechanism, a nutrient can act as a substrate for the enzymes associated with epigenetic regulation, but as an inhibitor in the second mechanism. For example, biotin is a substrate of histone biotinylation and curcumin is an inhibitor of histone acetyltransferases [24], [25].…”

“…Moreover, exact effect mechanisms of many bioactive substances also are unclear. However, the count of identified ones related to epigenetic mechanisms is drastically increasing by the development of novel technologies and new research strategies [24], [25]. In this manner, several examples for identified active nutrients and their effect mechanisms are shown in Table V. …”

Obesity: genome and environment interactions

“…However, they lead to chromatin remodelling through DNA methylation, a complex set of histone modifi cations, and the infl uence of non-coding RNAs. Besides the changes in the epigenetic status (33), lifestyle, dietary intakes, and environmental chemicals affect cell transcriptional factors (34), hormones (35,36), inflammatory mechanisms (37), and gut microbiome in certain organisms (38)(39)(40)(41), all of which are contributing factors for obesity epidemic (42-44, Figure 1). The Brought to you by | MIT Libraries Authenticated Download Date | 5/10/18 7:13 AM most important molecular and/or cellular changes that are refl ected on obesity phenotypes appearance are further described.…”