SÅAWOMIRA f Polish. Polish feminine form of SÅAWOMIR. SLOAN f English (Rare). Variant of SLOANE. SLOANE f English (Rare). From an Irish surname which was derived from an Anglicized form of the given name SLUAGHADHAN. SLUAGHADHÃ¡N slobodan M, Serbian, Macedonian. Croatian From South slavic sloboda meaning. freedomreek form of SOPHRONIUS. SOPHRONIUS m Late Greek (Latinized). Latinized form of the Greek name ÏÏÏÏÎ¿Î½Î¹Î¿Ï (Sophronios) , which was derived from Greek ÏÏÏÏÏÎ½ (sophron) self-controlled, sensible ... [more]. SOPHUS m Ancient Greek (Latinized). From the Greek name ÏÎ¿ÏÎ¿Ï (Sophos) which meant skilled, clever.
But a burgeoning field known as epigenetics is showing that many cancers may not be caused by mutations in genes, but by chemical modifications that alter how the genes function. Such modifications to genes are epigenetic-literally on top of or related to changes in the DNA sequence.
While epigenetic alterations are found in cancers, the epigenetic alterations in DNA repair genes, causing reduced expression of DNA repair proteins, may be of particular importance. Such alterations are thought to occur early in progression to cancer and to be a likely cause of the genetic instability characteristic of cancers.