Methylation level of ASC/TMS1 and MyD88 genes in healthy larynx and laryngeal carcinoma tissue

Abstract There are no biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of patients with laryngeal carcinoma. Methylation changes of ASC/TMS1 and MyD88 genes, in healthy and cancer tissue, might be related with development and progression of cancer. The study explored is there a difference in gene’s methylation in healthy and tumor tissue and does it correlate with protein expression. The total of 36 patients were enrolled in the study. Methylation of bisulphite converted DNA was quantified by pyrosequencing in fresh frozen cancer and adjacent non-malignant tissues. The overall methylation of MyD88 gene is significantly higher in healthy tissue and this finding correlates with protein expression and the overall methylation of ASC/TMS1 gene is unchanged but the protein expression of ASC/TMS1 is significantly higher in cancer. The methylation status of the ASC/TMS1 and MyD88 genes are promising prognostic biomarker candidates and may lead to earlier detection of laryngeal cancer.