title: Promoter hypermethylation of DNA repair gene MGMT in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma.
abstract: The relationship between hypermethylation of CpG islands in the promoter regions of O6-methylguanine DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) genes and laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma was explored. Methylation-specific PCR and semi-quantitative RT-PCR were used to study the promoter methylation and mRNA expression of the MGMT gene in laryngeal carcinoma tissues, tissues adjacent to the tumor and normal laryngeal tissues. Hypermethylation of MGMT gene was detected in 16 samples of 46 (34.8%) laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma samples. However, the MGMT hypermethylation was not detected in all tissues adjacent to the tumors and normal tissues. No significant difference in MGMT gene hypermethylation was found in samples with different histological grades (chi2 = 3.130, P = 0.077) or in samples from patients with different TNM status (chi2 = 3.957, P = 0.138). No expression of MGMT mRNA was detected in all hypermethylated laryngeal carcinoma tissues. The expression of MGMT mRNA was detected in all unmethylated laryngeal carcinoma tissues, tissues adjacent to the tumors and normal tissues. It suggests that MGMT gene promoter hypermethylation is associated with MGMT gene transcription loss in laryngeal carcinoma tissues and possibly plays an important role in carcinogenesis of laryngeal tissues.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430022, China.
authors.forename: Song
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Changkai
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Weijia
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kong
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000235:genetics*; D018899:CpG Islands / Q000235:genetics; D019175:DNA Methylation; D004260:DNA Repair; D006801:Humans; D007822:Laryngeal Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*; D019853:O(6)-Methylguanine-DNA Methyltransferase / Q000235:genetics*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D019853:O(6)-Methylguanine-DNA Methyltransferase