Annals of Oncology Advance Access originally published online on November 6, 2007
Annals of Oncology 2008 19(3):516-519; doi:10.1093/annonc/mdm493
gastrointestinal tumors |
Endogastric capsule for E-cadherin gene (CDH1) promoter hypermethylation assessment in DNA from gastric juice of diffuse gastric cancer patients
1 Institute of Histopathology, Azienda Ospedaliera Ospedale San Salvatore', Pesaro
2 Institute of Biochemistry G. Fornaini', University of Urbino, Urbino
3 Department of Onco-Hematology
4 Department of Surgery
5 Department of Health, Azienda Ospedaliera Ospedale San Salvatore', Pesaro, Italy
* Correspondence to: Dr P. Muretto, Institute of Histopathology, Azienda Ospedaliera Ospedale San Salvatore', Pesaro, Italy. Tel: +39-0721-362-555; Fax:+39-0721-362-582; E-mail: p.muretto{at}ospedalesansalvatore.it
Background: We investigated whether an endogastric capsule (EC) may be a valuable tool for collecting DNA from exfoliated cells from the gastric mucosa and for carrying out an analysis of promoter methylation status of the E-cadherin (CDH1) gene in poorly differentiated, diffuse gastric cancer (DGC).
Material and methods: Consecutive patients with a confirmed diagnosis of poorly differentiated DGC underwent collection of gastric juice by EC. Subjects without cancer and premalignant lesions were also accrued as controls. The samples of gastric juice were processed for DNA isolation and amplification. Then they were used for analysis of CDH1 promoter hypermethylation.
Results: The procedure successfully allowed the analysis of CDH1 promoter hypermethylation in 20 patients and 14 controls. This pilot study showed feasibility of the procedure and a significantly different CDH1 promoter hypermethylation status between DGC patients and controls was detected.
Conclusions: The EC may represent an innovative and noninvasive tool for the analysis of a specific epigenetic change in DGC patients. Our findings deserve additional studies as this method may represent a cost-effective tool for early detection of sporadic as well as hereditary DGC in CDH1 germline mutations carriers.
Key words: E-cadherin, gastric adenocarcinoma, gastric neoplasms, hypermethylation
Received for publication September 15, 2007. Accepted for publication September 19, 2007.