Analysis of and Promoter Methylation in Italian Families at High-Risk of Breast and Ovarian Cancer.

Previous studies on breast and ovarian carcinoma (BC and OC) revealed constitutional and promoter hypermethylation as epigenetic alterations leading to tumor predisposition. Nevertheless, the impact of epimutations at these genes is still debated. One hundred and eight women affected by BC, OC, or both and considered at very high risk of carrying germline mutations were studied. All samples were negative for pathogenic variants or variants of uncertain significance at testing. Quantitative and promoter methylation analyses were performed by Epityper mass spectrometry on peripheral blood samples and results were compared with those in controls. All the 108 analyzed cases showed methylation levels at the promoter comparable with controls. Mean methylation levels (± stdev) at the promoter were 4.3% (± 1.4%) and 4.4% (± 1.4%) in controls and patients, respectively ( > 0.05; -test); mean methylation levels (± stdev) at the promoter were 4.3% (± 0.9%) and 3.7% (± 0.9%) in controls and patients, respectively ( > 0.05; -test). Based on these observations; the analysis of constitutional methylation at promoters of these genes does not seem to substantially improve the definition of cancer risks in patients. These data support the idea that epimutations represent a very rare event in high-risk BC/OC populations.