CpG island methylation in colorectal cancer

To globally define methylation-’prone’ and -’protected’ CpG islands in cancer, we analyzed the methylation status of 23,000 CpG islands of the human genome in 19 colorectal carcinoma samples as well as normal colon using our previously described methyl-CpG immunoprecipitation (MCIp) technique (Gebhard et al. 2006; Schilling and Rehli 2007). This method enriches for highly CpG methylated DNA that can be directly applied to fluorescent labeling and oligonucleotide microarray hybridization without an additional amplification step. CpG-methylated genomic DNA was enriched using methyl-CpG immunoprecipitation (MCIp). On each microarray, the enriched material from colorectal carcinoma samples was compared to the enriched material from normal colon to identify aberrantly methylated regions.