Potencialidade dos genes CD44, DAPK, MGMT e RUNX3 como biomarcadores epigenéticos no câncer oral

Abstract

Oral cancer shows high incidence and mortality rate in various regions of the world, being squamous cell carcinoma its most common histological type. During tumorigenesis, hipermethylation of CpG islands is considered an important mechanism of gene silencing, possibly associated with risk factors, such as tobacco and alcohol consumptio n. CD44, DAPK, MGMT and RUNX3 genes participate in signaling pathways related to cell adhesion, apoptosis, DNA repair and proliferation. Aiming to study the association of hypermethylation and patient clinical characteristics, gene methylation profile was evaluated by MS-PCR (methylation specific PCR) in 85 samples of oral squamous cell carcinoma. Hypermethylation frequencies of DAPK, MGMT and RUNX3 were 41.2%, 20.5% and 1.5%, respectively. Positivity was not detected for CD44. Hypermethylation was found for at least one region in 51.7% of cases.