Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2010 Oct;17(4):245-55.
doi: 10.1177/107327481001700405.

Promoter hypermethylation in prostate cancer

Jong Y Park  1
Affiliations
Review

Promoter hypermethylation in prostate cancer

Jong Y Park. Cancer Control. 2010 Oct.

Abstract

Background: The prostate gland is the most common site of cancer and the second leading cause of cancer mortality in American men. It is well known that epigenetic alterations such as DNA methylation within the regulatory (promoter) regions of genes are associated with transcriptional silencing in cancer. Promoter hypermethylation of critical pathway genes could be potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets for prostate cancer.

Methods: This review discusses current information on methylated genes associated with prostate cancer development and progression.

Results: Over 30 genes have been investigated for promoter methylation in prostate cancer. These methylated genes are involved in critical pathways, such as DNA repair, metabolism, and invasion/metastasis. The role of hypermethylated genes in regulation of critical pathways in prostate cancer is reviewed.

Conclusions: These findings may provide new information of the pathogenesis of prostate cancer. Certain epigenetic alterations in prostate tumors are being translated into clinical practice for therapeutic use.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure
Figure
Role of DNA methylation in expression. Unmethylated and methylated CpG sites are indicated by yellow and black circles, respectively. Gene 1 and gene 2 are rarely methylated and therefore expressed. Densely hypermethylated CpG islands in the promoter region of a tumor suppressor gene (TSG) in tumor inhibit expression. Hypomethylation in the promoter region of oncogene in tumor reactivates a transcription process.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Crawford ED. Epidemiology of prostate cancer. Urology. 2003;62(6 suppl 1):3–12. - PubMed
    1. Jemal A, Siegel R, Xu J, et al. Cancer statistics, 2010. CA Cancer J Clin. 2010 Jul 7; Epub ahead of print.
    1. Baylin SB, Herman JG. DNA hypermethylation in tumorigenesis: epigenetics joins genetics. Trends Genet. 2000;16(4):168–174. - PubMed
    1. Smiraglia DJ, Plass C. The study of aberrant methylation in cancer via restriction landmark genomic scanning. Oncogene. 2002;21(35):5414–5426. - PubMed
    1. Rush LJ, Dai Z, Smiraglia DJ, et al. Novel methylation targets in de novo acute myeloid leukemia with prevalence of chromosome 11 loci. Blood. 2001;97(10):3226–3233. - PubMed