Hypermethylation Biomarkers for Detection of Cervical Cancer

摘要

Pap smears and HPV infection tests do not distinguish between lesions that will progress to an invasive carcinoma and those that will not. We aimed to identify epigenetic biomarkers for diagnosis and progression monitoring of premalignant lesions in cervical cancer. Hypermethylated genes were identified as potential biomarkers after validation by MSP, including GGTLA4 and ZNF516. The methylation frequency for these two genes was higher in tumor: GGTLA4 (100%) and ZNF516 (96%); than in normal samples: GGTLA4 (12%) and ZNF516 (16%). The methylation status of GGTLA4 showed a progression in methylation frequency from normal samples to invasive carcinoma. The immunohistochemical expression was lower in tumor for both: GGTLA4 (50.8%) and ZNF516 (66.2%); than in normal samples: GGTLA4 (71.2%) and ZNF516 (88.1%) (p<0.05). In conclusion, we identified methylation biomarkers for the molecular screening and characterization of cervical cancer.