Methylation Microarray Analysis of Late-stage Ovarian Carcinomas Distinguishes Progression-free Survival in Patients and Identifies Candidate Epigenetic Markers

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to profile methylation alterations of CpG islands in ovarian tumors and to identify candidate markers for diagnosis and prognosis of the disease.

Experimental Design: A global analysis of DNA methylation using a novel microarray approach called differential methylation hybridization was performed on 19 patients with stage III and IV ovarian carcinomas.

Results: Hierarchical clustering identified two groups of patients with distinct methylation profiles. Tumors from group 1 contained high levels of concurrent methylation, whereas group 2 tumors had lower tumor methylation levels. The duration of progression-free survival after chemotherapy was significantly shorter for patients in group 1 compared with group 2 (P < 0.001). Differential methylation in tumors was independently confirmed by methylation-specific PCR.

Conclusions: The data suggest that a higher degree of CpG island methylation is associated with early disease recurrence after chemotherapy. The differential methylation hybridization assay also identified a select group of CpG island loci that are potentially useful as epigenetic markers for predicting treatment outcome in ovarian cancer patients.