Identification and functional characterization of molecular markers involved in head and neck tumorigenesis using methylation pattern data

Abstract

Methylation of cytosines in CpG dinucleotides generally leads to the repression of gene expression and is involved in a diversity of normal biological processes such as control of development, protection of the genome against transposable elements, genomic imprinting and X chromosome inactivation. Aberrant DNA methylation is strongly implicated in the development of cancer affecting the expression of more than one hundred of genes for tumor suppression, proliferation and apoptosis regulation, and DNA repair. This fact means that the study of the DNA methylation and chromatin machinery elements related to gene silencing and the careful characterization of DNA methylation pattems in human cancer is essential. The precise quantification of the methylation status or CpG islands therefore mar be a powerful molecular marker for cancer diagnosis and prognosis. The primary aim of the present project is to profile methylation changes of CpG islands in head and neck carcinomas and to identify candidate biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis of theses tumors. Also, the present study aims to analyze the structural and functional aspects of the isolated biomarkers and the structural aspects of the DNA methylation and histone acetylation machinery elements. (AU)