Development of a Diagnostic Tool to Detect DNA Methylation Biomarkers for Early-Stage Lung Cancer.

摘要

Biomarkers based on DNA methylation patterns combine genetic (inherited) and epigenetic (environmental) manifestations of lung-cancer risk and have great promise in detecting early-stage lung cancer. The current approaches for finding novel methylation targets, however, either do not provide DNA base-pair resolution or are laborious to perform. This application overcomes these challenges by combining protein engineering and fluorescence spectroscopy to develop a highly sensitive molecular complex for mapping DNA methylation patterns. We have successfully produced the proposed molecular probes. The performance of the DNA methylation-recognition domain and our detection platform has been successfully validated. The developed probe is ready to be transitioned to mapping DNA methylation patterns within a gene locus. This technology will facilitate clinical screening for early-stage lung cancer patients.