Dataset Information

Long interspersed nuclear element 1 hypomethylation has novel prognostic value and potential utility in liquid biopsy for oral cavity cancer.

ABSTRACT:

Background

New biomarkers are urgently needed to improve personalized treatment approaches for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Global DNA hypomethylation has wide-ranging functions in multistep carcinogenesis, and the hypomethylation of long interspersed nucleotide element-1 (LINE-1) is related to increased retrotransposon activity and induced genome instability. However, little information is available regarding LINE-1 hypomethylation and its prognostic implications in HNSCC.

Methods

In this study, we analyzed LINE-1 hypomethylation levels in a well-characterized dataset of 317 primary HNSCC tissues and 225 matched pairs of normal mucosa tissues, along with five oral cavity cancer (OCC) circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) samples using quantitative real-time methylation and unmethylation PCR. The analysis was performed according to various clinical characteristics and prognostic implications.

Results

The results demonstrated that LINE-1 hypomethylation levels were significantly higher in the HNSCC tissues than in corresponding normal tissues from the same individuals (P < 0.001). Univariate analysis revealed that high levels of LINE-1 hypomethylation were correlated with poor disease-free survival (DFS; log-rank test, P = 0.038), whereas multivariate analysis demonstrated that they were significant independent prognostic factor for DFS (hazard ratio: 2.10, 95% confidence interval: 1.02-4.36; P = 0.045). Moreover, samples with high LINE-1 hypomethylation levels exhibited the greatest decrease in 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC) levels and increase in tumor-suppressor gene methylation index (P = 0.006 and P < 0.001, respectively). Further, ctDNA studies also showed that LINE-1 hypomethylation had high predictive ability in OCC.

Conclusions

LINE-1 hypomethylation is associated with a higher risk of early OCC relapse, and is hence, a potential predictive biomarker for OCC. Furthermore, 5-hmC levels also exhibited predictive potential in OCC, based on their inverse correlation with LINE-1 hypomethylation levels. LINE-1 hypomethylation analysis, therefore, has applications in determining patient prognosis and real-time surveillance of disease recurrence, and could serve as an alternative method for OCC screening.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information accompanies this paper at 10.1186/s40364-020-00235-y.

SUBMITTER: Misawa K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7585304 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Long interspersed nuclear element 1 hypomethylation has novel prognostic value and potential utility in liquid biopsy for oral cavity cancer.

Misawa Kiyoshi K Yamada Satoshi S Mima Masato M Nakagawa Takuya T Kurokawa Tomoya T Imai Atsushi A Mochizuki Daiki D Shinmura Daichi D Yamada Taiki T Kita Junya J Ishikawa Ryuji R Yamaguchi Yuki Y Misawa Yuki Y Kanazawa Takeharu T Kawasaki Hideya H Mineta Hiroyuki H

Biomarker research 20201023

<h4>Background</h4>New biomarkers are urgently needed to improve personalized treatment approaches for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Global DNA hypomethylation has wide-ranging functions in multistep carcinogenesis, and the hypomethylation of long interspersed nucleotide element-1 (LINE-1) is related to increased retrotransposon activity and induced genome instability. However, little information is available regarding LINE-1 hypomethylation and its prognostic implications in HN ...[more]

PMID: 33110605

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Project description:Although, increased oxidative stress and hypomethylation of long interspersed nuclear element-1 (LINE-1) associate with bladder cancer (BCa) development, the relationship between these alterations is unknown. We evaluated the oxidative stress and hypomethylation of the LINE-1 in 61 BCa patients and 45 normal individuals. To measure the methylation levels and to differentiate the LINE-1 loci into hypermethylated, partially methylated and hypomethylated, peripheral blood cells, urinary exfoliated cells and cancerous tissues were evaluated by combined bisulfite restriction analysis PCR. The urinary total antioxidant status (TAS) and plasma protein carbonyl content were determined. The LINE-1 methylation levels and patterns, especially hypomethylated loci, in the blood and urine cells of the BCa patients were different from the levels and patterns in the healthy controls. The urinary TAS was decreased, whereas the plasma protein carbonyl content was increased in the BCa patients relative to the controls. A positive correlation between the methylation of LINE-1 in the blood-derived DNA and urinary TAS was found in both the BCa and control groups. The urinary hypomethylated LINE-1 loci and the plasma protein carbonyl content provided the best diagnostic potential for BCa prediction. Based on post-diagnostic samples, the combination test improved the diagnostic power to a sensitivity of 96% and a specificity of 96%. In conclusion, decreased LINE-1 methylation is associated with increased oxidative stress both in healthy and BCa subjects across the various tissue types, implying a dose-response association. Increases in the LINE-1 hypomethylation levels and the number of hypomethylated loci in both the blood- and urine-derived cells and increase in the oxidative stress were found in the BCa patients. The combination test of the urinary hypomethylated LINE-1 loci and the plasma protein carbonyl content may be useful for BCa screening and monitoring of treatment.

Project description:ObjectiveHypomethylation of LINE-1 elements has emerged as a distinguishing feature in human cancers. Limited evidence indicates that some LINE-1 elements encode an additional internal antisense promoter, and increased hypomethylation of this region may lead to inadvertent activation of evolutionarily methylation-silenced downstream genes. However, the significance of this fundamental epigenetic mechanism in colorectal cancer (CRC) has not been investigated previously.DesignWe analysed tissue specimens from 77 CRC patients with matched sets of normal colonic mucosa, primary CRC tissues (PC), and liver metastasis tissues (LM). LINE-1 methylation levels were determined by quantitative bisulfite pyrosequencing. MET, RAB3IP and CHRM3 protein expression was determined by western blotting and IHC. MET proto-oncogene transcription and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmc) were evaluated by quantitative real-time-PCR.ResultsGlobal LINE-1 methylation levels in LM were significantly lower compared with the matched PC (PC=66.2% vs LM=63.8%; p<0.001). More importantly, we observed that specific LINE-1 sequences residing within the intronic regions of multiple proto-oncogenes, MET (p<0.001), RAB3IP (p=0.05) and CHRM3 (p=0.01), were significantly hypomethylated in LM tissues compared with corresponding matched PC. Furthermore, reduced methylation of specific LINE-1 elements within the MET gene inversely correlated with induction of MET expression in CRC metastases (R=-0.44; p<0.0001). Finally, increased 5-hmc content was associated with LINE-1 hypomethylation.ConclusionsOur results provide novel evidence that hypomethylation of specific LINE-1 elements permits inadvertent activation of methylation-silenced MET, RAB3IP and CHRM3 proto-oncogenes in CRC metastasis. Moreover, since 5-hmc content inversely correlated with LINE-1 hypomethylation in neoplastic tissues, our results provide important mechanistic insights into the fundamental processes underlying global DNA hypomethylation in human CRC.

Dataset Information

Long interspersed nuclear element 1 hypomethylation has novel prognostic value and potential utility in liquid biopsy for oral cavity cancer.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Supplementary information

Publications

Long interspersed nuclear element 1 hypomethylation has novel prognostic value and potential utility in liquid biopsy for oral cavity cancer.

Similar Datasets

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