Global DNA methylation patterns in primary anaplastic thyroid cancer

Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is one of the most malignant tumors, with a median survival of only a few months. The tumorigenic processes of this disease has not yet been completely unraveled. Here, we report an DNA methylation analysis of ten primary ATC. ATC displayed a global hypomethylation of the genome but with hypermethylation of promoters and CpG islands. This study shows that aberrant DNA methylation is common in ATC and likely contributes to tumorigenesis in this disease. Future explorations of novel treatments should take this into consideration. Bisulphite converted DNA from the anaplastic thyroid cancer samples (n = 10) and normal thyroid samples (n = 4) were hybridised to the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylationEPIC BeadChip v1.0_B4