Methylation Analysis of Tumour Suppressor Genes in Ovarian Cancer Using MS-MLPA

Chmelařová, Marcela; Křepinská, E.; Špaček, J.; Laco, J.; Nekvindová, J.; Palička, V.

doi:10.14712/fb2012058060246

Folia Biologica > Archive > 2012, Vol. 58 > Issue 6 > Methylation Analysis of Tumour…

Fol. Biol. 2012, 58, 246-250

https://doi.org/10.14712/fb2012058060246

Methylation Analysis of Tumour Suppressor Genes in Ovarian Cancer Using MS-MLPA

Marcela Chmelařová¹, E. Křepinská², J. Špaček², J. Laco³, J. Nekvindová¹, V. Palička¹

¹Department of Clinical Biochemistry and Diagnostics, Charles University in Prague – Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové and Faculty Hospital Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
²Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Charles University in Prague – Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové and Faculty Hospital Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
³The Fingerland Department of Pathology, Charles University in Prague – Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové and Faculty Hospital Hradec Králové, Czech Republic

Received April 2012
Accepted April 2012

Epigenetic changes are considered to be a frequent event during tumour development. Hypermethylation of promoter CpG islands represents an alternative mechanism for inactivation of tumour suppressor genes, DNA repair genes, cell cycle regulators and transcription factors. The aim of this study was to investigate promoter methylation of specific genes in ovarian cancer by comparison with normal ovarian tissue. To search for epigenetic events we used methylation-specific multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MS-MLPA) to compare the methylation status of 69 tissue samples of ovarian cancer with 40 control samples. Using a 15% cut-off for methylation, we observed significantly higher methylation in genes MGMT, PAX5, CDH13, WT1, THBS1, GATA5 in the ovarian cancer group, while in the ESR1 gene we observed significantly higher methylation in the control group compared with the ovarian cancer group. These findings could potentially be used in screening of ovarian cancer and may have implications for future chemotherapy based on epigenetic changes.

Keywords

MS-MLPA, DNA methylation, ovarian cancer, CDH13, epigenetics.

Funding

This study was supported by research project MZO 00179906 from the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic, by Grant SVV UK 262902/2011 and by Grant GA UK No. 157310.