Abstract
BackgroundThe down-regulation of E-cadherin gene (CDH1) expression has been regarded as an important event in cancer invasion and metastasis. However, the association between CDH1 promoter methylation and ovarian cancer remains unclear. A meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the potential role of CDH1 promoter methylation in ovarian cancer.MethodsRelevant articles were identified by searches of PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, CNKI and Wanfang databases. The pooled odds ratio (OR) and corresponding 95 % confidence interval (CI) were calculated to assess the strength of association.ResultsNine studies were performed using the fixed-effects model in this study, including 485 cancer tissues and 255 nonmalignant tissues. The findings showed that CDH1 promoter methylation had an increased risk of ovarian cancer in cancer tissues (OR = 8.71, P < 0.001) in comparison with nonmalignant tissues. Subgroup analysis of the ethnicity showed that the OR value of CDH1 methylation in Asian population subgroup (OR = 13.20, P < 0.001) was higher than that in Caucasian population subgroup (OR = 3.84, P = 0.005). No significant association was found between ovarian cancer and low malignant potential (LMP) tumor (P = 0.096) among 2 studies, and between CDH1 promoter methylation and tumor stage and tumor histology (all P > 0.05). There was not any evidence of publication bias by Egger’s test (all P > 0.05).ConclusionsCDH1 promoter methylation can be a potential biomarker in ovarian cancer risk prediction, especially Asians can be more susceptible to CDH1 methylation. However, more studies are still done in the future.
Highlights
The down-regulation of E-cadherin gene (CDH1) expression has been regarded as an important event in cancer invasion and metastasis
Studies must meet the following criteria: (1) all patients were diagnosed for primary ovarian cancer; (2) the study was about CDH1 promoter methylation and ovarian cancer; (3) study must have sufficient data about the frequencies of CDH1 promoter methylation to assess to the relationship between CDH1 promoter methylation and ovarian cancer; (4) only the most recent paper or the most complete one was selected to avoid duplicated publications
There were two control groups, including nonmalignant control with 8 studies and Low malignant potential (LMP) control with 2 studies. 8 studies evaluated the association between CDH1 promoter methylation and ovarian cancer risk, 4 studies evaluated the relationship between CDH1 and tumor histology, and 3 studies assessed the relationship between CDH1 and tumor stage
Summary
The down-regulation of E-cadherin gene (CDH1) expression has been regarded as an important event in cancer invasion and metastasis. The association between CDH1 promoter methylation and ovarian cancer remains unclear. A meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the potential role of CDH1 promoter methylation in ovarian cancer. DNA methylation is an important mechanism of epigenetic variability involved in gene expression, which plays key roles in the development of cancer [6,7,8]. Aberrant methylation of CpG islands of the promoter regions is the major alternative to accomplish tumor suppressor gene (TSG) silencing [9,10,11]. CDH1, a member of the cadherin family, plays an important role in epithelial cell-cell adhesion and in maintaining normal tissue architecture [13]
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