Epigenetic changes of Myeloma cells within the bone marrow microenvironment

Epigenetics refer to variability in gene expression, heritable through cell division, but without any underlying modification of the actual genetic sequence. These alterations play a fundamental role in normal physiological phenomenoma such as embryogenesis, genomic stability, X chromosome inactivation and imprinting, but also in cancer. Cancer cells have been shown to have genome-wide aberrations at epigenetic level, including global hypomethylation, promoter-specific hypermethylaion, histone deacetylation, global down regulation of miRNAs and upregulation of certain actors of the epigenetic machinery such as EZH2.