DNMT1 and cancer: In particular, LSD1 promotes cancer initiation, progression and relapse through various mechanisms: supporting cancer initiating cells by increasing expression of the pluripotency-related genes SOX2, OCT4 and NANOG [12]; regulating expression of tumor suppressors such as E-cadherin and p53; and demethylating lysine residues of several non-histone substrates, including p53 [13], Dnmt1 (DNA (cytosine-5) methyltransferase [14] and E2F1 [15].