Aberrant genes promoter methylation in neural crest-derived tumors.

la Torre, A
Muscarella, La
Balsamo, T
Bisceglia, M
Valori, Vm
la Torre, A
Perrella, E
Melchionda, G
Merla, G
Maiello, E
Pellicano, R
PARRELLA, PAOLA
BARBANO, RAFFAELA
POETA, Maria Luana
FAZIO, VITO MICHELE

Open link

Publication date

January 2012

DOI

10.5301/JBM.2012.9766

Publisher

SAGE Publications

ISSN

0393-6155

Abstract

Disturbances in the epigenetic landscape by aberrant methylation of CpG islands can lead to inactivation of cancer-related genes in solid tumors. We analyzed the promoter methylation status of 6 genes previously reported as cancer-specific methylated (MCAM, SSBP2, NISCH, B4GALT1, KIF1A and RASSF1A) in 38 neural crest-derived tumors by quantitative methylation-specific real-time PCR (QMSP). The results demonstrated that the determination of the methylation status of RASSF1A is able to distinguish between normal and tumor samples in cutaneous melanomas, lung carcinoids and small bowel carcinoids. MCAM methylation levels were significantly higher in lung carcinoids tumors (p=0.001), suggesting that this alteration may represent a molecular bio...