Methylation of the first exon in the erythropoietin receptor gene does not correlate with its mRNA and protein level in cancer cells.

Background: Erythropoietin receptor (EPOR) is a functional membrane-bound cytokine receptor. Erythropoietin (EPO) represents an important hematopoietic factor for production, maturation and differentiation of erythroid progenitors. In non-hematopoietic tissue, EPO/EPOR signalization could also play cytoprotective and anti-apoptotic role. Several studies identified pro-stimulating EPO/EPOR effects in tumor cells; however, numerous studies opposed this fact due to the usage of unspecific EPOR antibodies and thus potential absence or very low levels of EPOR in tumor cells. It seems that this problem is more complex and therefore we have decided to focus on EPOR expression at several levels such as the role of methylation in the regulation of EPOR expression, identification of possible EPOR transcripts and the presence of EPOR protein in selected tumor cells.

Methods: Methylation status was analysed by bisulfite conversion reaction, PCR and sequencing. The expression of EPOR was monitored by quantitative RT-PCR and western blot analysis.

Results: In this study we investigated the methylation status of exon 1 of EPOR gene in selected human cancer cell lines. Our results indicated that CpGs methylation in exon 1 do not play a significant role in the regulation of EPOR transcription. However, methylation status of EPOR exon 1 was cell type dependent. We also observed the existence of two EPOR splice variants in human ovarian adenocarcinoma cell line - A2780 and confirmed the expression of EPOR protein in these cells using specific A82 anti-EPOR antibody.

Conclusion: We outlined the methylation status of all selected cancer cell lines in exon 1 of EPOR gene and these results could benefit future investigations. Moreover, A82 antibody confirmed our previous results demonstrating the presence of functional EPOR in human ovarian adenocarcinoma A2780 cells.