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DNA methylation profiles in head and neck cancer

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the 6th most frequent malignancy in the world, with over 600, 000 new cases diagnosed each year. It is known that the main risk factors for this carcinoma are excessive alcohol and tobacco consumption. Still, there is a strong need to find new, good biomarkers of this disease. The most appropriate biomarkers would be those that would point out changes in epithelial cells before carcinoma occurrence. The presumption is that epigenetic biomarkers, such as methylated genes could point to changes even before they can be clinically detected. The model on which we explore those changes of DNA methylation are normal oral mucosa tissue and HNSCC tissue. Our previous studies have shown that different methylation of some cellular genes could be a good biomarker of mucosal diseases of the cervix. Hence, we assumed that those genes could also be changed substantially in the oral mucosa. We already detected altered methylation of those genes in potentially malignant lesions. Herein, we examined gene methylation status in HNSCC cells in relation to normal oral mucosa of tumor suppressor genes (i.e. RARB2) and genes involved in cell cycle regulation, transcription, apoptosis, differentiation and chromosomes repair (i.e. CCNA1, C13ORF18, hTERT1, hTERT2, TWIST1). The methylation specific polymerase chain reaction (MSP) was used to determine genes promoter methylation status. In this lecture, the methylation profiles will be correlated with the diagnosis. Our results point out that promoter methylation of the most of the investigated genes significantly differentiate between normal oral samples and HNSCC samples.

methylation, profile, cancer

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