Advanced chemotherapy fails to treat liver cancer but recent progress in understanding epigenetic modifications have witnessed promising clinical outcomes. Epigenetic alteration is the alteration of epigenomes (surrounding histone proteins) without changing the DNA sequence. Such epigenetic mechanisms include histone modifications such as methylation, acetylation, phosphorylation and sumoylation followed by changes in the genomic architecture. Current studies involving the understanding of small RNA molecules such as noncoding RNA and microRNA in modulating the chromatin architecture are explained in depth here, along with effects of some novel compounds from recent preclinical and clinical evidence. This review also discusses the current state-of-the-art strategies and the possible scope of investigation to improve the existing treatment methods for liver-related disorders.

晚期化学疗法无法治疗肝癌，但是最近在了解表观遗传修饰方面的进展见证了有希望的临床结果。表观遗传学改变是表观基因组的改变（围绕组蛋白），而不改变DNA序列。这样的表观遗传机制包括组蛋白修饰，例如甲基化，乙酰化，磷酸化和SUMO化，随后是基因组结构的改变。在此深入解释了涉及对小RNA分子（如非编码RNA和微RNA）在调节染色质结构中的理解的研究，以及一些来自最近的临床前和临床证据的新型化合物的作用。