Genome-wide DNA methylation profiling of CpG islands in breast cancer

Epigenetic profiling of tumor DNAs may reveal important new theranostic targets to improve prognosis and treatment of advanced cancer patients. In this study, we performed a genome-wide profile of DNA methylation patterns in sporadic breast tumors by using the HumanMethylation27 BeadChips to assess relationships between DNA methylation changes and patient tumor characteristics. The arrays identified 264 hypermethylated loci/genes present in breast cancer genomes This study has used the Illumina HumanMethylation27 BeadChip to assess methylation levels of 39 sporadic ductal carcinomas and 4 additional sporadic ductal carcinoma samples. Four normal breast tissue DNA samples were used as controls that were sourced from the same patient as the 4 additional tumour samples.