title: No evidence for PALB2 methylation in high-grade serous ovarian cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  High-grade serous ovarian cancers are a distinct histological subtype of ovarian cancer often characterised by a dysfunctional BRCA/Fanconi anaemia (BRCA/FA) pathway, which is critical to the homologous recombination DNA repair machinery. An impaired BRCA/FA pathway sensitises tumours to the treatment with DNA cross-linking agents and to PARP inhibitors. The vast majority of inactivating mutations in the BRCA/FA pathway are in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and occur predominantly in high-grade serous cancer. Another member of the BRCA/FA pathway, PALB2 (FANCN), was reported to have been inactivated by DNA methylation in some sporadic ovarian cancers. We therefore sought to investigate the role of PALB2 methylation in high-grade serous ovarian cancers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  PALB2 methylation was investigated in 92 high-grade serous ovarian cancer samples using methylation-sensitive high-resolution melting analysis. DNA methylation of PALB2 was not detected in any of the ovarian cancer samples investigated.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Epigenetic silencing by DNA methylation of PALB2 is not a common event in high-grade serous ovarian cancers.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Pathology Research and Development Laboratory, Department of Pathology, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, East Melbourne, VIC, Australia. Alexander.Dobrovic@petermac.org.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mikeska
authors.forename: Kathryn
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Alsop
authors.forename: Gillian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.forename: David Dl
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Bowtell
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dobrovic