Epigenetic aberrations have been associated with cutaneous melanoma tumorigenesis and progression including dysregulated DNA gene promoter region methylation, histone modification, and microRNA. Several of these major epigenetic aberrations have been developed into biomarkers. Epigenetic biomarkers can be detected in tissue and in blood as circulating DNA in melanoma patients. There is strong evidence that biomarkers in cutaneous melanoma will have an important role as companions to therapeutics and overall patient management. Important progress has been made in epigenetic melanoma biomarker development and verification of clinical utility, and this review discusses some of the key current developments and existing challenges.
Keywords: BC; BCC; BM; Biomarker; CAE; CIMP; CTC; CTCL; ChIP; CoBRA; CpG island methylator phenotype; DNA methyltransferase; DNMT; Epigenetics; IHC; LINE-1; MCC; MINT; MSP; Melanoma; Methylation; MicroRNA; OS; PCR; Prognosis; ROC; SBM; SCC; TMZ; TRG; UTR; basal cell carcinoma; biochemotherapy; biomarker; capillary array electrophoresis; cell-free circulating nucleic acid; cf-CNA; chromatin immunoprecipitation; circulating tumor cell; combined bisulfite restriction analysis; cutaneous T-cell lymphoma; immunohistochemistry; long interspersed nuclear element-1; merkel cell carcinoma; methylated-in-tumor; methylation-specific realtime PCR; miRNA; micro-RNAs; overall survival; polymerase chain reaction; receiver operating characteristics; sodium bisulfite modification; squamous cell carcinoma; temozolomide; tumor-related genes; untranslated region.
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