2014

Yuet-Meng Chin, Aliza Mohd Yacob, Kian-Meng Chang and Zubaidah Zakaria (2014). DNA methylation profile of tumor suppressor genes in de novo acute myeloid leukemia patients in Malaysia. International Journal of Recent Scientific Research 5(1): 15-19

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease in terms of clinical features, treatment outcome, cytogenetic aberrations and gene mutations. Besides genetic alterations, epigenetic changes also play a significant role in the development and progression of AML. Gene silencing via hypermethylation of the promoters of tumor suppressor genes (TSGs) is a well-known phenomena in cancers and hematological malignancies. Using an innovative technology based on methylation-sensitive and methylation-dependent restriction enzymes digestion followed by quantitative real time PCR array, we detected TSG hypermethylation at the promoter region in 41 out of 60 (68.3%) de novo AML patients at diagnosis. The TSGs hypermethylated were SLCA5A8, DRD2, HOXA7, HOXB5, NFATC1, CEBPD, CTNNA1, EXT1, HCK, LMNA and MAFB. The two most frequently hypermethylated TSGs in AML were SLC5A8 (68.3%) and DRD2 (51.7%). All AML patients with DNA methylation had SLC5A8 methylated. Simultaneous methylation of TSGs was found with a frequency of 80.5% in patients with DNA methylation. Further studies on the role of SLC5A8 methylation in the pathogenesis of AML is required.