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Regardless of their type or stage, cancers appear to share a telltale signature of widespread changes to the so-called epigenome, suggests a new study. 

According to the study, researchers have found widespread and distinctive changes in a broad variety of cancers to chemical marks known as methyl groups attached to DNA. These also help govern whether genes are turned "on" or "off" and ultimately how the cell behaves. 

"Regardless of the type of solid tumor, the pattern of methylation is much different on the genomes of cancerous cells than in healthy cells," said Andrew Feinberg, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of medicine, molecular biology and genetics, oncology, and biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in the press release. Feinberg led the new study along with Rafael Irizarry, Ph.D., a professor of biostatics at Harvard University and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. "These changes happen very early in tumor formation, and we think they enable tumor cells to adapt to changes in their environment and thrive by quickly turning their genes on or off," Feinberg added.

Feinberg, along with the other colleagues first identified abnormal methylation in some cancers in 1983. Since then researchers have found other cancer-associated changes in epigenetic marks. However, only recently, researchers have gained the tools needed to find out just how widespread these changes are.

"All of the tumors had big blocks of DNA where the methylation was randomized in cancer, leading to loss of methylation over big chunks and gain of methylation in smaller regions," said Winston Timp, Ph.D., an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins. "The changes arise early in cancer development, suggesting that they could conspire with genetic mutations to aid cancer development."

The study is published in the journal Genome Medicine.