Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common cancer in children in the modern world. Recent efforts in characterizing the genetic contribution to this disease through uncovering gene mutations, deletions and structural variation by genome-scale methods have only accounted for a modest proportion of children with ALL. This suggests that either further genetic contributions to ALL have yet to be characterized or other factors, such as epigenetic aberrations are involved. A number of DNA methylation and miRNA profiling studies have investigated the role of both in childhood ALL. Here, we review these profiling efforts, summarize their major findings and speculate as to what the future may hold.

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Papers of special note have been highlighted as: ▪ of interest ▪▪ of considerable interest

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Published online 9 November 2010

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Financial & competing interests disclosure

Nicholas Wong has been supported by the Leukemia Foundation of Australia through a Phillip Desbrow Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Project Grant in Aid. Funding of projects leading to the synthesis of this article was from the Victorian Cancer Agency and the National Health and Medical Research Institute, Australia. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

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DNA methylation and miRNA expression profiling in childhood B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia

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