Comparative evaluation of ZMYND-8 and RARβ2 genes promoters’ methylation changes in tumor and tumor margin tissues of patients with lung cancer

Abstract

BackgroundLung cancer remains one of the most lethal carcinomas worldwide because of its late diagnosis. One of the DNA modifications is methylation, one of the primary alterations of tumor development, consisting of fascinating indicators for cancer diagnosis. This study investigated ZMYND-8 and RARβ2 gene methylation in NSCLC as a new epigenetic tool.MethodsFirst, to find out the potential diagnostic capability of ZMYND-8 and RARβ2 genes methylation, we entirely surfed DNA methylation microarrays from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data of NSCLC samples. Additionally, we took advantage of using q-MSP in several pieces comprising NSCLC tumors and neighboring normal tissues; ZMYND-8 and RARβ2 genes methylation grades were acquired.ResultsOur finding displayed significant hypomethylation of ZMYND-8 and hypermethylation of RARβ2 in NSCLC samples compared to neighboring standard specimens, which significantly correlated with the clinical stage of malignancy. In addition, the incredible precision of ZMYND-8 and RARβ2 methylations as reliable cancer diagnosis indicators in NSCLC was confirmed, drawing the ROC curve analysis with an AUC value of 0.751 and 0.8676, respectively, for ZMYND-8 and RARβ2. Additional studies of other dominant cancer entities in TCGA displayed that RARβ2’s higher methylation degree and ZMYND-8 lower methylation degree are prevalent changes in tumor evolution which could be possibly considered as a potential diagnostic biomarkers for lung cancer.ConclusionBased on this study, ZMYND-8 and RARβ2 methylation are reliable biomarkers for lung cancer.