Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men worldwide and is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Consequently, there is an urgent unmet need for novel treatment avenues. In addition to somatic genetic alterations, deviations in the epigenetic landscape of cancer cells and their tumor microenvironment (TME) are critical drivers of prostate cancer initiation and progression. Unlike genomic mutations, epigenetic modifications are potentially reversible. Therefore, the inhibition of aberrant epigenetic modifications represents an attractive and exciting novel treatment strategy for castration-resistant prostate cancer patients. Moreover, drugs targeting the epigenome also exhibit synergistic interactions with conventional therapeutics by directly enhancing their anti-tumorigenic properties by “priming” the tumor and tumor microenvironment to increase drug sensitivity. This review summarizes the major epigenetic alterations in prostate cancer and its TME, and their involvement in prostate tumorigenesis, and discusses the impact of epigenome-targeted therapies.
前列腺癌是全球男性中第二常见的癌症，具有高发病率和高死亡率。因此，迫切需要寻找新的治疗途径。除了体细胞基因改变外，癌细胞及其肿瘤微环境（TME）的表观遗传景观异常是前列腺癌发生和发展的关键驱动因素。与基因组突变不同，表观遗传修饰具有潜在的可逆性。因此，抑制异常的表观遗传修饰为去势抵抗性前列腺癌患者提供了一种有吸引力且令人兴奋的新型治疗策略。此外，靶向表观基因组的药物还能通过“启动”肿瘤和肿瘤微环境以增强药物敏感性，直接提升传统疗法的抗肿瘤特性，从而表现出协同作用。本综述总结了前列腺癌及其肿瘤微环境中的主要表观遗传改变及其在前列腺肿瘤发生中的作用，并讨论了靶向表观基因组疗法的影响。
肿瘤(癌症)患者之家