Whole methylome explorations of paired tumor and non-tumor clinical samples using HELP Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • Abstract Introduction: Gene silencing by promoter methylation is common in carcinogenesis. In lung cancer, hypermethylation of specific gene promoters has been found to occur during the earliest histologic stages of the cancer. Thus far surveys of methylation in lung tumors have focused on specific gene panels (5 10 genes). A few large scale studies have reported selection of longer gene lists or focused on larger sets of CpG islands. Methods: We have adapted an approach to survey genome-wide methylation events in tumor and adjacent non-tumor tissue from clinical lung resection samples using the HELP (HpaII tiny fragment Enrichment by Ligation mediated PCR) assay. This assay, based on the generation of restriction enzyme libraries generated by methylation sensitive (HpaII) and methylation insensitive (MspI) isoschizomers yields information on 1.2 million HpaII fragments throughout the genome. Each HpaII fragment corresponds to two CpG sites. The assay lends itself to low starting amounts of DNA (3 ug) and robust assessment of methylation status by comparing ratios of HpaII- generated- fragments to MspI- generated fragments co-hybridized to a Nimbelgen custom high-density microarray. Summary of results: In a pilot set of three paired tumor and non-tumor tissue samples, we identified 1504 fragments (corresponding to two CpG sites each) that were hypermethylated in tumor versus non-tumor in all three pairs. Of these, 165 fragments were located within gene promoters. In the opposite direction, 2907 fragments were found to be hypermethylated in non-tumor versus tumor. Of these, 81 were located within gene promoters. We could identify both known and novel regions of the genome as well as specific gene-promoters that are hypermethylated in tumor versus non-tumor. We will discuss selected methylation events in further detail. Conclusion: The HELP assay is a powerful approach to interrogate methylation status of individual HpaII fragments across the whole genome, offering a large sample size of 1.2 million HpaII fragments. We are able to discover individual methylation events common across different clinical specimens and are currently expanding our sample set, and planning correlations with transcriptome-wide studies. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4820. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-4820

published proceedings

  • CANCER RESEARCH

author list (cited authors)

  • Mullapudi, N., Shi, M., Suzuki, M., & Spivack, S.

citation count

  • 0

complete list of authors

  • Mullapudi, Nandita||Shi, Miao||Suzuki, Masako||Spivack, Simon

publication date

  • April 2011