PURPOSE Our aim was to investigate whether and at what stage hypermethylation of the tachykinin-1 (TAC1) gene is associated with human esophageal neoplastic transformation. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN TAC1 promoter hypermethylation was examined by real-time methylation-specific PCR in 258 human esophageal specimens and 126 plasma samples from patients or tissues at various stages of neoplastic evolut...

Hypermethylation of promoter regions leading to inactivation of tumor suppressor genes is a common event in the progression of several tumor types. We have employed a novel restriction digestion based multiplex PCR assay to analyse the methylation status of promoter regions of tumor suppressor genes (p16, hMLH1, MGMT and E-cadherin) in sporadic breast carcinomas of Indian women. The present res...

BACKGROUND Claudin-11 (CLDN11) is frequently silenced by its promoter hypermethylation. Previous studies have shown that CLDN11 promoter hypermethylation is a potential biomarker for diagnosing various cancers. The aim of this study was to investigate CLDN11 promoter methylation and its potential relevance to clinicopathologic features and prognosis of patients with laryngeal squamous cell carc...

The DNA mismatch repair (MMR) gene MutL homolog 1 (MLH1) is critical for the maintenance of genomic integrity. Methylation of the MLH1 gene promoter was identified as a prognostic marker for numerous types of cancer including glioblastoma, colorectal, ovarian and gastric cancer. The present study aimed to determine whether MLH1 promoter methylation was associated with survival in male patients ...

Feng et al. ( 1 ) examined whether changes in DNA methylation of 20 genes, selected on the basis of their role in cervical cancer, could be used as markers of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and invasive cervical cancer (ICC). The authors found varying frequencies of promoter hypermethylation in these 20 genes in 319 exfoliated cell samples and matched tissue biopsy specimens. For four...

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality in men worldwide. Aberrant RARβ promoter methylation has been frequently investigated in non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), the most common form of lung cancer. The aim of present study was to carry out a meta-analysis and a systematic review to evaluate clinicopathological significance of RARβ promoter hypermethylation in NSCLC. ...

The normal epithelial cell-specific-1 (NES1)/kallikrein 10 gene is expressed in normal mammary epithelial cells, but its expression is dramatically decreased in breast cancer cell lines. Now, we have cloned and characterized the active promoter region of NES1. Using a luciferase reporter system, we demonstrate that most tumor cell lines are able to support full or partial transcription from the...

Development of resistance to imatinib mesylate (IM) in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients has emerged as a significant clinical problem. The observation that increased epigenetic silencing of potential tumor suppressor genes correlates with disease progression in some CML patients treated with IM suggests a relationship between epigenetic silencing and resistance development. We hypothesiz...