Variation in RASSF1A Hypermethylation in Breast Cancer Patients under Various Stages of Treatment

The need for new breast cancer screening tools which are accurate and sensitive is indisputably high due to limitations in the current screening procedures. Detection of breast cancer is now possible only after the mild progression of the disease. Use of molecular markers such as DNA methylation as a diagnostic technique is recommended since methylation is a frequent event in breast cancer and can be detected at an early stage. Breast cancer patients under various stages of treatment and healthy individuals were enrolled for this study. Plasma DNA was isolated from both cancer patients and healthy individuals (controls), since DNA in plasma is thought to originate from necrotic and apoptic tumor cells. The RASSF1A gene in most of the breast cancer patients were found to be methylated in accordance with the stages of their treatment while absence of methylation was observed in control samples. It was observed that the methylation of RASSF1A gene was reversed during the course of treatment. This study suggests that a non-invasive technique like plasma DNA analysis for the detection of methylation of RASSF1A gene may be used as a diagnostic and prognostic tool for breast cancer.