The Contribution of Next Generation Sequencing Technologies to Epigenome Research of Stem Cell and Tumorigenesis

Abstract

Epigenome contains another layer of genetic information, not as stable as genome. Dynamic epigenome can serve as an interface to explain the role of environmental factors. Stem cell and tumorigenesis are reported to be closely associated with epigenome modifications. Next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have directly leaded to the recent advances in epigenome research of stem cell and cancer. DNA methylation and histone modification are two major epigenetic modifications. Four NGS-based approaches have been developed to identify these two epigenetic modifications, including whole genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS), methylated DNA Immunoprecipitation Sequencing (MeDIP-Seq), reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) and chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-Seq). This paper reviews the recent advances of WGBS, MeDIP-Seq and RRBS for DNA methylation and ChIP-Seq for histone modification in the field of stem cell. The potential contribution of epigenetic modifications to tumorigenesis is also described. At present, the epigenome research still faces the defects of current sampling strategy and unknown network regulation pattern. In future, worldwide collaboration and latest sequencing technologies application are expected to solve these problem and offer new insight into epigenome research.

Cancer Stem Cells — Perspectives and How to Target Them

“…It was speculated that there exist a senior layer of information, besides genome sequence for regulating differential gene expressions and thus determining cancer evolving. This concept was early prospected by Conrad Hal Waddington in 1942 and subsequently described as "epigenetic control system" by Nanney in 1958 [93,94]. Epigenetics primarily refers to the study of chromosome variations that modulate gene transcription without alterations in the DNA sequences [95,96].…”

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“…Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) has contributed too many aspects of modern medicine, such as the progress in personalized medicine [4][5][6]. NGS refers to non-Sanger-based high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies, in which the sequencing process is parallelized.…”

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