How structural variation shapes the cancer epigenome.

Abstract

It is widely recognized that cancer develops through a series of changes that modify the genomes of normal cells, enabling them to acquire new malignant properties. Epigenetic disruptions, which do not directly change the genetic sequence but rather influence how the genome is interpreted, have garnered significant attention as contributors to malignant transformation and progression. With the advent of new technologies to profile both the genome and epigenome of cancer cells simultaneously, the interplay between structural variation (SV) and epigenetic changes in malignancy is now an expanding field. In this review, we describe the key technological advances and highlight recent research exploring the relationship between SV and the epigenome in cancer.