Implication of the Strand-Specific Imprinting and Segregation Model: Integrating in Utero Hormone Exposure, Stem Cells and Visceral Lateral Asymmetry Hypotheses in Breast Cancer Aetiology

Known genetic mutations and familial hereditary factors account for less than 20–25% of breast cancer cases in women, therefore, most instances have been classified as sporadic cases of unknown aetiologies. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were considered as breast cancer risk factors, but numerous studies have failed to support this assertion. Recent evidence correlates aberrant epigenetic mechanisms in the development and metastatic progression of breast cancer, yet there has been limited progress made to identify the primary aetiology underlying sporadic cases of breast cancer. This has led some researchers to consider alternative hypotheses including in utero exposure to deleterious chemical agents during early development, the immortal strand and the strand-specific imprinting and selective chromatid segregation hypotheses. Here, we integrate prominent alternate models to help guide future research on this very important topic concerning human health. *Corresponding author: Amar Klar, Section Head, Gene Regulation and Chromosome Biology laboratory, National Cancer Institute at Frederick, 7th Street, Ft. Detrick, P.O. Box B, Frederick, MD 21702, USA, Tel: 301 846 5916; Fax 301 846 6911; E-mail: [email protected] Received May 31, 2013; Accepted August 12, 2013; Published August 16, 2013 Citation: Harbinder S, Lazzara CA, Klar AJS (2013) Implication of the StrandSpecific Imprinting and Segregation Model: Integrating in utero Hormone Exposure, Stem Cell and Lateral Asymmetry Hypotheses in Breast Cancer Aetiology. Genetics S2: 005. doi:10.4172/2161-1041.S2-005 Copyright: © 2013 Harbinder S, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.