2. The authors suggested that HBx can induce caveolin-1 gene CpG island methylation, based on their in vitro study using a SMMC-7721 cell line. They also found that 28/33 HCC samples were positive for caveoline-1 gene CpG island methylation. How about the adjacent non-tumor tissues? Since HBx may commonly expressed in the non-tumor tissue, has they seen any caveolin-1 CpG island methylation in ...

CpG islands are genome subsequences with an unexpectedly high number of CG di-nucleotides. They are typically identified using filtering criteria (e.g., G+C% expected vs. observed CpG ratio and length) and are computed using sliding window methods. Most such studies illusively assume an exhaustive search of CpG islands are achieved on the genome sequence of interest. We devise a Lexis diagram a...

Gastric cancers arise through a multistep process characterized by the progressive accumulation of molecular alterations in which genetic and epigenetic mechanisms have been implicated. Gastric cancer is one of the human malignancies in which aberrant promoter CpG island hypermethylation is frequently found. Helicobacter pylori and Epstein-Barr virus, which are known carcinogens for gastric can...

Methylation of promoter CpG islands in colorectal cancer (CRC) falls into two categories: age related and cancer specific. Most cancer-specific methylation at CpG islands occurs in a subset of cases that display the CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP). The underlying cause of CIMP is not known. Using methylation-specific PCR, we studied 47 CRC patients for methylation at five loci to determi...

Recent studies showing a correlation between the levels of DNA (cytosine-5-)-methyltransferase (DNA MTase) enzyme activity and tumorigenicity have implicated this enzyme in the carcinogenic process. Moreover, hypermethylation of CpG island-containing promoters is associated with the inactivation of genes important to tumor initiation and progression. One proposed role for DNA MTase in tumorigen...

Combined genetic and epigenetic analysis of sporadic colon cancer suggest that it can no longer be viewed as a single disease. There are at least three different subsets with distinct clinico-pathologic features, with important implications for preventions, screening, and therapy.

PURPOSE Hypermethylation of the CpG island at the promoter region of the pi-class glutathione S-transferase gene (GSTP1) is the most common somatic genome abnormality in human prostate cancer. We evaluated circulating cell-free DNA GSTP1 CpG island hypermethylation as a prognostic biomarker in the serum of men with prostate cancer. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Prostate cancer DNA GSTP1 CpG island hype...

CpG islands were originally identified by epigenetic and functional properties, namely, absence of DNA methylation and frequent promoter association. However, this concept was quickly replaced by simple DNA sequence criteria, which allowed for genome-wide annotation of CpG islands in the absence of large-scale epigenetic datasets. Although widely used, the current CpG island criteria incur sign...

Positional cloning is a powerful method for the identification of genes. Using genetic and physical mapping methods the genomic region within which a particular gene is located can relatively easily be narrowed down to a comparatively small area contained within cosmid, PAC or BAC clones. It is then a matter of identifying genes within these clones. Here we describe the appli-cation of a techni...