Fast Facts: 1  Alterations to chemicals attached to DNA, known as epigenetic changes, affect how genes do their work and have been linked to colon cancer. 2  A new study of six different cancer types found distinctive epigenetic changes in all of them.These insights into the cancer epigenome could provide a foundation for development of early screening or preventive treatment for cancer,” Timp says, suggesting that the distinctive methylation “fingerprint” could potentially be used to tell early-stage cancers apart from other, harmless growths.