DNA Methylation in Breast Tumor from High-risk Women in the Breast Cancer Family Registry

Abstract

To examine DNA methylation profiles in breast tumors of women with a strong breast cancer family history, we measured methylation by bisulfite sequencing in 40 genes in 40 breast tumor tissues from women in the Breast Cancer Family Registry. We selected candidate genes from analysis of the Cancer Genome Atlas project (TCGA) breast data. Compared to TCGA breast cancer, BCFR cases are younger and more likely to be ER-negative. Overall, we found that many of the methylation differences between BCFR tumor and normal adjacent tissues were smaller than that in TCGA samples. We found only 32% of tested genes were hypermethylated in BCFR; the largest difference was 36.1% for SEPW1, and the smallest difference was 10% for RYR2. These data suggest the importance of examining breast cancer cases including familial cases enriched with early-onset cancers to identify methylation markers that can be examined in blood as biomarkers for early detection.