• The Effect of Epigenetics on Gastrointestinal cancer
  • rostam rezaeian,1,* kosar babaei,2 Hanieh Beyrampour-Basmenj,3 Jalal Mohammadi Khoshraj,4 Fatemeh bagherie esfandani,5
    1. Infectious and Tropical Diseases Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
    2. Tonekabon Azad University, Mazandaran, Iran
    3. Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Advanced Medical Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
    4. Higher education Institute of Rab-Rashid, Tabriz, Iran
    5. Tonekabon Azad University, Mazandaran, Iran


  • Introduction: Cancer is one of the chronic and non-contagious malignant diseases that is considered as a health problem affecting the health of the community. Epigenetics is a collection of mechanisms and phenomena. The phenotype determines a cell without being in. Its genotype made a difference. An epigenetic from a molecular perspective involves a range of changes on the chromatin. That involves: DNA Methylation, Histone Modifications, Histone Variation, and Chromatin Remodeling. In this study, there is evidence of the role of environmental factors and their effects on the incidence of gastrointestinal cancers.
  • Methods: Articles related to epigenetic changes and their role in the development of gastrointestinal malignancies from scientific databases such as SID, Google Scholar, MedLib, ISI, ISC, Iran Medex, Scopus PubMed were extracted using keywords of epigenetic, gastrointestinal malignancies, methylation. Finally, it was more appropriate than the other articles regarding subject matter. The articles were transcribed with time constraints in English and Persian.
  • Results: Nutrition is one of the most important and influential elements in the field of epigenetics. Many studies have shown that nutritional factors in vegetables and fruits can trigger tumor suppressor and apoptotic genes and suppress the cancerous genes through epigenetic effects. Smoking, obesity, lack of exercise, unhealthy nutrition, water, air, and food pollution and chronic viral infections are among the main risk factors for developing gastrointestinal cancers.
  • Conclusion: Cancer is a disease caused by genetic disorders and epigenetic pathways play an important role in its development or inhibition. It has now been proven that many of the symptoms of cancer, such as cell self-reliance, inhibition of differentiation, cell death and tissue invasion, are affected by Epigenome changes. Epigenetic changes such as DNA hypermetylation and histone dyssulation due to the ability to change in comparison with genetic factors, such as mutation and gene removal, are good targets for the development of new therapies. It is hoped that by recognizing as much as possible the molecular mechanisms controlling the phrenic regulation, a positive step can be taken to identify these processes as closely as possible and to improve the current research-therapeutic methods because science is in absolute search.
  • Keywords: Epigenetics, Gastrointestinal cancer, cancer and DNA.