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The promise of epigenetics is that it tells us about the cell, it's a way of defining the cell that is different than simply looking at gene expression levels.

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The term epi means above. It is a Greek prefix. It is also defined as above the DNA base sequence. In general terms it can be compared to the accents of the words where the DNA is the language and the modifications are the accents.

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Any type of cell we look at has specialized epigenetic patterns.

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There are two types of modifications: DNA methylation and histone modification. DNA methylation is altered in cancer so if we know what the normal methylation pattern is and then look at the methylation pattern in a tumor we could see what changes were taking place and which genes were affected.