Aberrant DNA methylation plays a significant role in the pathogenesis of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). CTNNA1 has been found to be low-expressed in some hematologic malignancies and various solid cancers. In the current study, we analyzed the methylation status of CTNNA1 promoter in 70 Chinese patients with CML using methylation-specific PCR (MSP) and examined CTNNA1 expression in 36 patients using real-time quantitative PCR (RQ-PCR). CTNNA1 promoter hypermethylation was present in 21 (30.0%)

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... CML cases. No significant differences were found in sex, white blood cells, hemoglobin concentration, platelet counts, chromosomal abnormalities and BCR-ABL transcript between CTNNA1 hypermethylated and unmethylated groups (P>0.05). However, the age in methylated patients was significant higher than unmethylated patients (median 56 vs 41.5 years, P = 0.016). The frequency of CTNNA1 promoter hypermethylation in chronic phase, in accelerated phase and in blast crisis were 30.9% (17/55), 33.3% (1/3) and 25.0% (3/12), respectively (P>0.05). Patients with CTNNA1 hypermethylation had significantly lower level of CTNNA1 expression (median 0.04) than those with CTNNA1 unmethylation (median 0.51) (P = 0.020). Our data suggest that hypermethylation of CTNNA1 promoter is a frequent molecular alteration in the CML patients.