title: Detection of promoter hypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes in urine from kidney cancer patients.
abstract: Kidney cancer is curable by surgical resection and therapy, if detected at an early stage. Using sensitive methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction, we screened matched tumor DNA and preoperative urine DNA from 50 kidney cancer patients, for hypermethylation of a panel of six normally unmethylated tumor suppressor genes: VHL, p16/CDKN2a, p14ARF, APC, RASSF1A, and Timp-3. When compared to the tumor DNA, an identical pattern of gene hypermethylation was found in the matched urine DNA from 44 of 50 patients (88% sensitivity) including 27 of 30 cases of stage I disease. By contrast, hypermethylation was not observed in normal and benign disease controls (100% specificity). We conclude that promoter hypermethylation is a common and early event in kidney tumorigenesis and can be detected in the urine DNA from patients with organ-confined renal cancer of all histologic types.
authors.affiliation: Fox Chase Cancer Center, Surgical Oncology & Pathology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19111, USA. P_Cairns@fccc.edu
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cairns
mesh_terms: D019175:DNA Methylation; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000652:urine*; D016147:Genes, Tumor Suppressor; D006801:Humans; D007680:Kidney Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000652:urine*; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
chemical_list: D004273:DNA, Neoplasm