朱忠胜　张春林　汪泱

Osteosarcoma is one of the most prevalent primary bone tumors in children and young adults. The incidence is 6 to 9 per million. The pathogenesis and molecular development of this tumor remains elusive. Though patient undergoes surgery of tumor resection and neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the survival for 5 years is only 60%-70%. The prognosis has not been further improved due to the recurrence of the tumor, distant metastasis, chemoresistance, and lack of effective treatment. Epigenetics studies the heritable changes in gene sequence which does not change. This genetic alteration regulates the gene expression changes in another level of transcriptional regulation of gene expression. Therefore, the role of DNA sequence is only to carry genetic information, epigenetic mechanism for the development of eukaryotes was able to play the role of regulation. The epigenetic abnormalities involved in tumor development process, and affect the prognosis. The patterns of epigenetic regulation are DNA methylation, histone modifications, microRNA regulation et al. Recent advances in the epigenetics have brought a profound influence on the understanding of molecular mechanisms that leads to osteosarcoma. The targets of epigenetic regulation may be the molecular drug targets in the future and provide new ideas and methods for tumor treatment. In this review, we summarized the current literature on epigenetic changes that are thought to contribute to the carcinogenesis of osteosarcoma, and discussed the potential diagnostic and therapeutic applications as well as future areas of research.