科研之友
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摘要
Inactivation of tumor-related genes by promoter hypermethylation is a common epigenetic event in the development of variety of tumors. Dermal (also called twist2) is a novel cancer-related gene which belongs to the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor family. Herein, we report that dermal expression was sporadically abrogated in human cancer cells by transcriptional silencing associated with CpG island promoter hypermethylation. Direct sequencing of bisulfite-modified DNA from a panel of seven human cancer cell lines (HL60, Molm14, MV4-11, RS4:11, MDM-BA231, H358, and H1299) revealed that CpG dinucleotides in the dermal promoter were methylated. RT-PCR results demonstrated that dermal CpG island hypermethylation was accompanied by a low basal dermal expression level. Our data implicate dermal as a tumor suppressor gene and a valuable molecular marker for human cancer.
