ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2024
On epigenetic stochasticity, entropy and cancer risk.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Epigenetic clocks as quantitative readouts of epigenetic drift.Nature aging · 2026Article
- Article
- Epigenetic entropy, socioeconomic differences, and health and lifespan in the Women's Health Initiative.Clinical epigenetics · 2026Article
- Age-Related Epigenetic Drift Shapes Coordinated microRNA Promoter Methylation and Expression in Prostate Cancer.Epigenomes · 2026Article
- Mapping the temporal landscape of breast cancer using epigenetic entropy.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Quantifying Landscape and Flux from Single-Cell Omics: Unraveling the Physical Mechanisms of Cell Function.JACS Au · 2025Review
- The molecular impact of cigarette smoking resembles aging across tissues.Genome medicine · 2025Article
- Cell-type-specific subtyping of epigenomes improves prognostic stratification of cancer.Genome medicine · 2025Article
- Constitutional Epimutations: From Rare Events Toward Major Cancer Risk Factors?JCO precision oncology · 2025Review
- Exosomal ncRNAs in reproductive cancers†.Biology of reproduction · 2025Review
- Interpretable deep learning of single-cell and epigenetic data reveals novel molecular insights in aging.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Stochastic processes in development and disease.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Epigenetic changes are known to accrue in normal cells as a result of ageing and cumulative exposure to cancer risk factors. Increasing evidence points towards age-related epigenetic changes being acquired in a quasi-stochastic manner, and that they may play a causal role in cancer development. Here, I describe the quasi-stochastic nature of DNA methylation (DNAm) changes in ageing cells as well as in normal cells at risk of neoplastic transformation, discussing the implications of this stochasticity for developing cancer risk prediction strategies, and in particular, how it may require a conceptual paradigm shift in how we select cancer risk markers. I also describe the mounting evidence that a significant proportion of DNAm changes in ageing and cancer development are related to cell proliferation, reflecting tissue-turnover and the opportunity this offers for predicting cancer risk via the development of epigenetic mitotic-like clocks. Finally, I describe how age-associated DNAm changes may be causally implicated in cancer development via an irreversible suppression of tissue-specific transcription factors that increases epigenetic and transcriptomic entropy, promoting a more plastic yet aberrant cancer stem-cell state. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Causes and consequences of stochastic processes in development and disease'.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.