Methylation status of CDH1 gene in samples of gastric mucous from Brazilian patients with chronic gastritis infected by Helicobacter pylori.

CONTEXT Gastric cancer is one of the top list of cancer types that most leads to death in Brazil and worldwide. Helicobacter pylori(H. pylori) is a class I carcinogen and infect almost 90% of chronic gastritis patients. Some genotypes confer different virulent potential to H. pylori and can increase the risk of gastritis development. Methylation of CpG islands can inactivate tumor suppressor genes and therefore, it can be involved in the tumorigenic process. CDH1 is a tumor suppressor gene that encodes the E-cadherin protein, which is important in maintaining cell-cell contacts. The inactivation of this gene can increase the chance of metastasis. Promoter methylation of CDH1 at early steps of gastric carcinogenesis is not yet completely understood. OBJECTIVE In this study, we investigated the methylation status of CDH1 in chronic gastritis samples and correlated it with the presence of H. pylori. METHODS Sixty gastric mucosal biopsies were used in this study. The detection of H. pylori was performed with the PCR primers specific to urease C gene. H. pylori genotyping was performed by PCR to cagA and vacA (s and m region). The methylation status of these gene CDH1 was analyzed using methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction and direct sequencing of the PCR products was performed using primers methylated and unmethylated in both forward and reverse directions. RESULTS H. pylori was detected in 90% of chronic gastritis samples; among these 33% were cagA positive and 100% vacA s1. The genotype vacA s2/m1 was not detected in any sample analyzed. Methylation of CDH1 was detected in 63.3% of chronic gastritis samples and 95% of them were also H. pylori-positive. CONCLUSION This work suggests that CDH1 gene methylation and H. pylori infection are frequent events in samples from Brazilian patients with chronic gastritis and reinforces the correlation between H. pylori infection and CDH1 inactivation in early steps of gastric tumorigenesis.