Methylation and expression of c-myc and c-abl oncogenes in human leukemic K562 cells before and after treatment with 5-azacytidine.

The correlation between expression and extent of DNA methylation of c-myc and c-abl oncogenes has been investigated in the human leukemic K-562 cell line before and after 5-azacytidine-mediated erythroid induction. RNA accumulation was analyzed by cytoplasmic dot hybridization and DNA methylation by using HpaII and MspI endonucleases, which differently cleave the CCGG sequence depending on cytosine methylation. Both the oncogenes are expressed in uninduced cells; however, whereas the c-myc expression does not change following 5-azacytidine treatment, the c-abl expression sharply decreases. The HpaII pattern shows that the c-myc DNA region is undermethylated and that the c-abl gene is hypermethylated both before and after the erythroid induction. Nevertheless, in both the genes 5-azacytidine produces variations in the MspI pattern compatible with mCmCGG to CmCGG demethylations.