DNA Methylation Patterns Separate Senescence from Transformation Potential and Indicate Cancer Risk

Publication date: 12 February 2018
Source:Cancer Cell, Volume 33, Issue 2
Author(s): Wenbing Xie, Ioannis Kagiampakis, Lixia Pan, Yang W. Zhang, Lauren Murphy, Yong Tao, Xiangqian Kong, Byunghak Kang, Limin Xia, Filipe L.F. Carvalho, Subhojit Sen, Ray-Whay Chiu Yen, Cynthia A. Zahnow, Nita Ahuja, Stephen B. Baylin, Hariharan Easwaran
Overall shared DNA methylation patterns between senescence (Sen) and cancers have led to the model that tumor-promoting epigenetic patterns arise through senescence. We show that transformation-associated methylation changes arise stochastically and independently of programmatic changes during senescence. Promoter hypermethylation events in transformation involve primarily pro-survival and developmental genes, similarly modified in primary tumors. Senescence-associated hypermethylation mainly involves metabolic regulators and appears early in proliferating "near-senescent" cells, which can be immortalized but are refractory to transformation. Importantly, a subset of transformation-associated hypermethylated developmental genes exhibits highest methylation gains at all age-associated cancer risk states across tissue types. These epigenetic changes favoring cell self-renewal and survival, arising during tissue aging, are fundamentally important for stratifying cancer risk and concepts for cancer prevention.

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Teaser

Xie et al. show that transformation-associated methylation changes arise stochastically and evolve independently of senescence. A subset of transformation-associated hypermethylated genes favoring cell self-renewal and survival exhibits highest methylation gains during aging and early tumorigenesis.


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