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Molecular Oncology, Markers, Clinical Correlates |
Departments of Surgery [T. S. W., H. W. C., K. C. T., W. I. W., A. P. W. Y.], Clinical Oncology [D. L. W. K., J. S. T. S.], and Medicine [Y. L. K.], The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR China
| ABSTRACT |
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Experimental design: The methylation status was evaluated by methylation-specific PCR (MSP). Thirty-two NPC biopsy specimens, plasma and buffy coat of 12 patients, 5 NPC cell lines, 3 normal nasopharyngeal biopsy tissues, and 2 normal nasopharyngeal epithelial primary cultures were included in this study.
Results: There was no promoter hypermethylation in all 3 normal nasopharyngeal tissues and 2 normal nasopharyngeal primary cultures. Hypermethylation was found in 24 (75%) NPC primary tumor biopsies and 4 (80%) NPC cell lines. Of the 24 patients with hypermethylation of DAP-kinase promoter in the primary tumors, 12 patients had their plasma and buffy coat DNA available for MSP study. Hypermethylated DAP-kinase promoter was detectable in 5 patients in the plasma but not in the buffy coat, 2 patients in the buffy coat but not in the plasma, and 1 patient in both plasma and buffy coat. Four patients had no detectable hypermethylated DAP-kinase promoter in both plasma and buffy coat. Hypermethylation of DAP-kinase promoter was found in both early- and late-stage NPC.
Conclusions: Our results show that hypermethylation of the DAP-kinase promoter is a common early event in NPC. The high frequency of identification of hypermethylated DAP-kinase promoter in plasma and buffy coat of NPC patients illustrates its potential clinical application as tumor marker for the diagnosis and monitoring of treatment result.
| INTRODUCTION |
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DAP-kinase (also known as DAP-2) is an actin-associated, calcium/calmodulin-dependent enzyme with serine/threonine kinase activity (13
, 14)
. DAP-kinase expression may affect apoptosis and contributes to immortalization. It is an essential mediator involved in the IFN-
-induced programmed cell death in HeLa cells (15)
. The apoptotic effects of IFN-
is suppressed in the presence of antisense DAP-kinase mRNA. DAP-kinase is also involved in the tumor necrosis factor-
and Fas-induced apoptosis (15)
. Furthermore, DAP-kinase is found to be associated with the p19ARF/p53-mediated apoptosis in the rodent model (16)
. The p53 gene in the embryonic fibroblasts is activated by DAP-kinase in a p19ARF-dependent fashion (16)
. In lung carcinoma cell lines, the metastatic behavior is correlated with the DAP-kinase level (17)
. In vitro metastatic activity of the lung carcinoma cell lines is suppressed if expression of DAP-kinase is maintained at a physiological level in animal models (17)
.
Hypermethylation of DAP-kinase promoter has been demonstrated in human neoplasm-derived cell lines (18) , B-cell malignancies (19) , primary lung cancer (20 , 21) , and head and neck cancers (22) . In this study, we investigated the methylation status of DAP-kinase in NPC to define the frequency of this epigenetic aberration and its clinicopathological significance.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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DNA Extraction and Purification.
Blood and tissues were obtained with consent for research purposes. The nasopharyngeal biopsy tissues were immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen and subsequently stored at -80°C until use. The biopsies were treated with proteinase K (0.5 mg/ml) for 36 h at 50°C. High molecular weight genomic DNA was obtained by conventional phenol/chloroform and ethanol extraction (23)
. For the primary cultures of normal nasopharyngeal tissues and NPC cell lines, DNA was extracted and purified by the Wizard Genomic DNA Purification kit according to the protocol of the manufacturer (Promega Corp., Madison, WI). The peripheral venous blood of patients were collected by EDTA-containing bottle. The plasma was immediately separated by centrifugation at 400 x g for 10 min, and the extracted plasma was transferred to a plain tube for further extraction by centrifugation at 1000 x g for 10 min. The buffy coat fraction was also collected to study the presence of circulating tumor cells in the peripheral blood. The plasma and buffy coat samples were stored at -80°C until further processing. DNA from plasma and buffy coat were extracted by a Puregene Blood kit (Genetra, Minneapolis, MN) using the protocol as recommended by the manufacturer.
Bisulfide Modification and MSP.
Methylation status of the samples was investigated by MSP as described in the literature (19, 20, 21, 22
, 24
, 25)
. In brief, 1 µg of the genomic DNA was modified by sodium bisulfide using the CpGenome DNA Modification kit (Intergen, New York, NY) according to the manufacturers protocol. Modified DNA was amplified by two different primer sets specific to the unmethylated (U) and methylated (M) DAP-kinase sequences, respectively. For the methylated sequence, the forward and backward primers were 5'-GGA TAG TCG GAT CGA GTT AAC GTC-3' and 5'-CCC TCC CAA ACG CCG A-3', and those for the unmethylated sequences were forward 5'-GGA GGA TAG TTG GAT TGA GTT AAT GTT-3' and reverse 5'-CAA ATC CCT CCC AAA CAC CAA-3'. The sense unmethylated and methylated primers correspond to bp 2 and 5 of GenBank sequence no. X76104. The PCR amplification was performed for a total of 35 cycles with an annealing temperature of 60°C. Universal methylated human male genomic DNA (Intergen) was used as the positive control. Genomic DNA purified from peripheral blood of a healthy voluntary donor was used as a negative control. A blank control containing all PCR components except sample DNA was also included in all PCRs. The PCR products were then loaded on a 3.5% agarose gel with ethidium bromide and visualized under UV illumination. The U primers amplify a 98-bp PCR product only on an unmethylated promoter but not on a methylated promoter. The M primers amplify a 106-bp PCR product on a methylated promoter but not on a unmethylated promoter. Specimens with purely unmethylated promoters will have positive PCR products by U primers but not with the M primers. A specimen that contains purely methylated promoter will have PCR products by using M primers but not with the U primers. A specimen that contains heterogeneous tissue of both methylated and unmethylated promoters will have PCR products from both U primers and M primers.
Bisulfite Sequencing.
Both U and M products of the MSP were excised from the agarose gel and purified by Geneclean DNA purification kit (BIO101, Vista, CA). The PCR products were sequenced with the forward U and M primers, respectively, using the DNA sequencing kit (Perkin-Elmer Corp, Warrington, United Kingdom) and were analyzed by 377 ABI prism automatic sequencer (Perkin-Elmer Corp., Foster city, CA).
| RESULTS |
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| DISCUSSION |
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The present study showed a high frequency (75%) of promoter hypermethylation of the DAP-kinase gene in NPC tumors but not in normal nasopharyngeal tissues and normal nasopharyngeal epithelial primary cultures. The absence of promoter hypermethylation in histologically normal nasopharyngeal issues and primary cultures showed that DAP-kinase promoters are unmethylated in normal nasopharynx, in contrast with certain genetic aberrations such as chromosome 3p loss that were found to be present sometimes in normal nasopharynx (5) .
Although promoter hypermethylation of DAP-kinase is frequently found in NPC, it has no correlation with sex, age, stage, recurrence, and survival. This is in contrast with stage 1 non-small cell carcinoma of lung in which patients with hypermethylation of DAP-kinase have 5-year survival of 56% compared with 92% for those patients without hypermethylation (20) . Higher frequency of DAP-kinase promoter hypermethylation was also found in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas with nodal metastasis and in more advanced stage (22) . This implies that the prognostic value of promoter hypermethylation of DAP-kinase is disease specific and may be affected by many other factors, e.g., treatment modalities, histology, site, and stage.
Promoter hypermethylation is an important epigenetic mechanism in the development and progression of many human cancers including NPC. Promoter hypermethylation of other genes in NPC has also been found including p16 (22% of 27 primary tumors) and RASSF1A (67% of 21 primary tumors; Refs. 10 , 11 ). Promoter hypermethylation is a potential tumor marker in the diagnosis and monitoring of cancer (22 , 25) . Although DAP-kinase gene hypermethylation does not seem to have prognostic value, it may be one of the potentially useful genes in the clinical monitoring of residual or recurrent disease after treatment. Of those patients with hypermethylated promoter DAP-kinase in the primary tumors, 50% patients had detectable hypermethylated promoter in plasma. The value of hypermethylated promoter DAP-kinase DNA in circulating plasma as a tumor marker needs further evaluation. The presence of detectable hypermethylated promoter DAP-kinase in buffy coat indicates the presence of circulating NPC cancer cells. The presence of circulating tumor cells is an important step in the development of distant metastasis. The possible identification of hypermethylated promoter DAP-kinase promoter in plasma and buffy coat of NPC patients warrants further investigation, particularly in its potential clinical applications in monitoring residual and recurrent tumors after treatment. The early detection of residual and recurrent tumors may allow for a higher chance of successful salvage treatment. Hypermethylated promoter DNA found in some patients with early-stage tumor also indicates its possible useful clinical application in the molecular screening and adjunct in the diagnosis of NPC.
| FOOTNOTES |
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1 This study is supported by the Betty and Kadoorie Cancer Research Fund, the Ho Hung Chiu Cancer Research Fund, and a research grant of the University of Hong Kong. ![]()
2 To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at Department of Surgery, Queen Mary Hospital, 102 Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China. ![]()
3 The abbreviations used are: NPC, nasopharyngeal carcinoma; DAP, death-associated protein; MSP, methylation-specific PCR. ![]()
Received 8/ 8/01; revised 11/27/01; accepted 11/28/01.
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