Abstract
Background Kashmir valley (India) has a high incidence of gastric cancer, suggesting that special dietary habits of the Kashmiri population diet consumption (including traditional pickles, sundried food, and mixed spice cake) could be a predisposing factor for gastric carcinoma. This study aimed to correlate some special dietary habits of patients with gastric carcinoma in Kashmir with the hypermethylation of three important cancer related genes (p16, hMLH1, and E-cadherin). Methods DNA was extracted from the surgical samples of 65 patients with gastric carcinoma and hypermethylation. Specific PCR (MSP-PCR) was used to reveal the hypermethylation of p16, hMLH1, and E-cadherin genes. The relationship between the hypermethylation of these genes particularly with dietary habits and with other patient characteristics, were evaluated. Findings Aberrant gene methylation of p16, E-cadherin, and hMLH1 were 40%, 58%, and 80%, respectively. A significant age-related association (older than 50 years) was observed with hypermethylation of hMLH1 (p = 0.003) and p16 (p = 0.01). Furthermore, a highly significant association was noted between differentiated histological type of tumour and hMLH1 gene methylation (p = 0.0001), whereas methylated E-cadherin displayed a fairly significant association with differentiated histological types of tumours (p = 0.02). A strong association was observed between smokers and hMLH1 (p = 0.002) and E-cadherin (p = 0.04) gene methylation. Interestingly, p16 gene methylation showed a highly significant association with eating traditional pickle (p = 0.0001) and mixed spice cake (p = 0.004), which was the same for E-cadherin gene methylation (p = 0.01). Sundried vegetable consumption was also found to be strongly associated with hMLH1 gene methylation (p = 0.0001). Interpretation The special dietary habits of the Kashmiri population probably plays an important part in induction of methylation of genes p16, hMLH1, and E-cadherin, and thus to the development of gastric carcinoma.
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