Hypermethylation Status of E-Cadherin Gene in Gastric Cancer Patients in a High Incidence Area

Abstract

Gastric cancer (GC) is the fourth most prevalant cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. As in other cancers gastric carcinogenesis is multifactorial involving environmental, genetic and epigenetic components. Epigenetic silencing due to hypermethylation of tumour suppressor genes is one of the key events in gastric carcinogenesis. This study was aimed to analyse the hypermethylation status of the E-Cadherin (<em>CDH1</em>) gene promoter in GCs in the ethnic Kashmiri population. In this study a total of 80 GC patients were recruited. Hypermethylation in tumour tissue was detected by methylation specific PCR (MS-PCR). Hypermethylation of <em>CDH1 </em>promoter was observed in 52 (65%) of gastric carcinoma cases which was significantly much higher than adjacent normal tissue [p≤0.0001]. Further the frequency of <em>CDH1 </em>promoter methylation was significantly different with intestinal and diffuse types of gastric cancer [55.7% vs 82.1%; p<0.05]. Moreover females and cases with lymph node invasion had higher frequencies of <em>CDH1 </em>hypermethylation [P≤0.05]. Thus the current data indicate a vital role of epigenetic alteration of <em>CDH1 </em>in the causation and development of gastric cancer, particularly of diffuse type, in our population.