Veland N, Hardikar S, Zhong Y, Gayatri S, Dan J, Strahl BD, Rothbart SB, Bedford MT, Chen T. (2017) The Arginine Methyltransferase PRMT6 Regulates DNA Methylation and Contributes to Global
DNA Hypomethylation in Cancer.
This unbiased approach revealed global
hypomethylation in the cancer cell line (HCC1954) relative to epithelial cells (HMEC), and some specific patterns:
The next part is to predict the risk of individual dogs, and to treat hyper or
hypomethylation with drugs, expand the study to other breeds and preventative medication to dogs at risk.
While loss of DNA methyl groups, known
as hypomethylation, is a common feature of many cancers, the mechanisms behind this phenomenon have until now been largely unknown.
But the mechanism isn't perfect: «If you look at tumors, they tend to have
hypomethylation overall, but hypermethylation in some genes,» Sapienza says.
Hypomethylation affects both repetitive and unique sequences, the latter including differentially methylated regions that regulate expression of parentally imprinted genes.
Such epigenetic mechanisms have already been exploited for diagnosis and treatment; for example, DNA
hypomethylation therapy with 5 - azacytidine is approved for MDS and is in clinical trials for some other cancers.
Global DNA
hypomethylation coupled to repressive chromatin domain formation and gene silencing in breast cancer Genome Research, 22 (2), 246 - 258 DOI: 10.1101 / gr.125872.111
Inadequate dietary intake of methyl groups leads to
hypomethylation in many important pathways, including 1) disturbed hepatic protein (methionine) metabolism as determined by elevated plasma homocysteine concentrations and decreased S - adenosylmethionine concentrations, and 2) inadequate hepatic fat metabolism, which leads to steatosis (fatty accumulation) and subsequent plasma dyslipidemia.
Recent genome - wide assays for DNA methylation have reported that
global hypomethylation is a hallmark of breast and colon cancers.
The 6 subgroups were replicated in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) melanomas, where β - catenin signaling was also associated with low immune scores predominantly related to
hypomethylation.
The authors looked at gene expression in a panel of 50 ERBB2 (Her2) positive breast tumors and found that this pattern held up: DNA
hypomethylation is associated with decreased gene expression in breast cancer.