Genome-wide methylated CpG island profiles of melanoma cells reveal a melanoma coregulation network

Sci Rep. 2013 Oct 16:3:2962. doi: 10.1038/srep02962.

Abstract

Metastatic melanoma is a malignant cancer with generally poor prognosis, with no targeted chemotherapy. To identify epigenetic changes related to melanoma, we have determined genome-wide methylated CpG island distributions by next-generation sequencing. Melanoma chromosomes tend to be differentially methylated over short CpG island tracts. CpG islands in the upstream regulatory regions of many coding and noncoding RNA genes, including, for example, TERC, which encodes the telomerase RNA, exhibit extensive hypermethylation, whereas several repeated elements, such as LINE 2, and several LTR elements, are hypomethylated in advanced stage melanoma cell lines. By using CpG island demethylation profiles, and by integrating these data with RNA-seq data obtained from melanoma cells, we have identified a co-expression network of differentially methylated genes with significance for cancer related functions. Focused assays of melanoma patient tissue samples for CpG island methylation near the noncoding RNA gene SNORD-10 demonstrated high specificity.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cluster Analysis
  • CpG Islands*
  • DNA Methylation*
  • Epigenesis, Genetic*
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic*
  • Gene Order
  • Gene Regulatory Networks*
  • Genome-Wide Association Study
  • Humans
  • Melanoma / genetics*
  • Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid