Abstract
Hypermethylation of promoter CpG islands represents an alternative mechanism for inactivation of tumor 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.
We used MS-MLPA (Methylation-specific Multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification) 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.