Correlation of HOXD3 promoter hypermethylation with clinical and pathologic features in screening prostate biopsies.

Background: Molecular markers that can discriminate indolent cancers from aggressive ones may improve the management of prostate cancer and minimize unnecessary treatment.Aberrant DNA methylation is a common epigenetic event in cancers and HOXD3 promoter hypermethylation (H3PH) has been found in prostate cancer. Our objective was to evaluate the relationship between H3PH and clinicopathologic features in screening prostate biopsies.

Improved real-time multiplex polymerase chain reaction detection of methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) 677C>T and 1298A>C polymorphisms using nearest neighbor model-based probe design.

The disorders of folate metabolism caused by methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene polymorphisms may lead to several disease states including coronary heart disease, venous thrombosis, and several types of cancer. We have developed a real-time multiplex single-tube polymerase chain reaction procedure on the LightCycler for the detection of the two most commonly occurring variants, 677C>T and 1298A>C, in the MTHFR gene. An improved probe design, based on the nearest neighbor model for nucleic acid-probe duplex stability, resulted in a better separation (DeltaTm approximately 10 degrees C) of melting peaks of the wild-type and mutant alleles than that by the existing method (DeltaTm approximately 3 degrees C) for specimens heterozygous for the 1298A>C polymorphism.