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The role of vimentin as a methylation biomarker for early diagnosis of cervical cancer

Molecules and Cells volume 31, pages 405–411 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

Multiple cytosine guanine dinucleotides (CpG island) are found in the VIM promoter region. The levels of VIM promoter methylation and VIM gene expression were investigated in 7 cervical cancer cell lines and 50 human tissue samples with a distinctive degree of malignant trans-formation. While multiple CpG sites in the VIM promoter were highly methylated in CIN III and invasive carcinoma cells, they were rarely methylated in normal cells. Our result shows that methylation in the VIM promoter appears to start from CIN I and CIN II, relatively early stages of multistep carcinogenesis. This epigenetic alteration in VIM promoter suggests the availability as a biomarker for the early diagnosis and prevention of cervical cancer. We also show that hypermethylation in the VIM promoter is responsible for transcriptional silencing of the VIM gene in cervical cancer cells. In addition, our result shows that exogenous overexpression of the VIM gene in SiHa cervical cancer cells slightly activated cell proliferation and migration as shown in soft agar colony formation and migration assays.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Biological Science and Research Center for Women’s Diseases, Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul, 140-742, Korea

    Samil Jung, Lisha Yi, Jinsun Kim & Myeong-Sok Lee

  2. Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, Soonchunhyang University, Cheonan, 330-090, Korea

    Dongjun Jeong, Chang-Hwan Kim & Chang-Jin Kim

  3. Genomictree Inc., Daejeon, 305-811, Korea

    Taejeong Oh & Sungwhan An

  4. Songdo Technopark, Inchon, 406-840, Korea

    Jin Shin

Authors
  1. Samil Jung
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  2. Lisha Yi
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  3. Jinsun Kim
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  4. Dongjun Jeong
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  5. Taejeong Oh
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  6. Chang-Hwan Kim
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  7. Chang-Jin Kim
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  8. Jin Shin
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  9. Sungwhan An
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  10. Myeong-Sok Lee
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Sungwhan An or Myeong-Sok Lee.

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Jung, S., Yi, L., Kim, J. et al. The role of vimentin as a methylation biomarker for early diagnosis of cervical cancer. Mol Cells 31, 405–411 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10059-011-0229-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10059-011-0229-x

Keywords

  • cervical cancer
  • epigenetic gene regulation
  • methylation biomarker
  • VIM