Epigenome of Ovarian Cancer
The role of SNPs on epigenetic regulation and cancer genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified many SNPs associated with an increased risk of a variety of diseases including ovarian cancers. Surprisingly, cancer associated SNPs are significantly enriched at regions defined as functional enhancers and might confer cancer susceptibility by altering the DNA structure/chromatin landscape. Genetic variants can modify the chromatin accessibility of TF binding sites, thereby leading to gene expression differences, this is how risk SNPs can exert their effect through their target gene.
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O.C.R.A aims to further understand functional associations among epigenetic variation (epigenotype), genetic variation (genotype), and trait or disease (phenotype) may help us to determine the causality of diseases. Providing a map to see what the target genes are for each known GWAS/risk SNPs and tumor mutations regulation gives us insight into which genes are involved in ovarian cancer onset and progression.