Relationship between promoter methylation tissue expression of MGMT gene in ovarian cancer

摘要

Background & objectives:Epigenetic alterations, in addition to multiple gene abnormalities, are involved in the genesis and progression of human cancers. Aberrant methylation of CpG islands within promoter regions is associated with transcriptional inactivation of various tumour suppressor genes. O⁶-methyguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) is a DNA repair gene that removes mutagenic and cytotoxic adducts from the O⁶-position of guanine induced by alkylating agents. MGMT promoter hypermethylation and reduced expression has been found in some primary human carcinomas. We studied DNA methylation of CpG islands of the MGMT gene and its relation with MGMT protein expression in human epithelial ovarian carcinoma.