DNA methylation changes that precede onset of dysplasia in advanced sessile serrated adenomas.

Affiliation

The Conjoint Gastroenterology Laboratory, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, 300 Herston Road, Herston, Brisbane, QLD, 4006, Australia. [Email]

Abstract

Sessile serrated adenomas (SSAs) are common polyps which give rise to 20-30% of colorectal cancer (CRC). SSAs display clinicopathologic features which present challenges in surveillance, including overrepresentation in young patients, proclivity for the proximal colon and rarity of histologic dysplasia (referred to then as SSAs with dysplasia, SSADs). Once dysplasia develops, there is rapid progression to CRC, even at a small size. There is therefore a clinical need to separate the "advanced" SSAs at high risk of progression to SSAD and cancer from ordinary SSAs. Since SSAs are known to accumulate methylation over time prior to the development of dysplasia, SSAD backgrounds (the remnant SSA present within an SSAD) likely harbour additional methylation events compared with ordinary SSAs. We therefore performed MethyLight and comprehensive methylation array (Illumina MethylationEPIC) on 40 SSAD backgrounds and 40 matched ordinary SSAs, and compared the methylation results with CRC methylation, CRC expression and immunohistochemical data.

Keywords

Colorectal cancer,Dysplasia,MLH1,Methylation,Methylation array,Sessile serrated adenoma,