Analysis of Promoter Methylation and Polymorphic Minisatellites of BORIS and Lack of Association with Gastric Cancer

BORIS is a member of the cancer-testis gene family that comprises genes normally expressed only in testis but abnormally activated in different malignancies. In this study, we examined the relation between BORIS expression and gastric cancer, which is the most common cancer in Korea. Abnormal BORIS expression in the patient's gastric cancer tissues was observed. We checked the methylation status of the gene in gastric cancer tissue, because the regulation by methylation in its CpG islands is well known for BORIS. However, there was no correlation between the methylation status and gene expression. Then, we focused on the minisatellites (variable number of tandem repeats) of BORIS as another possible regulator for this abnormal expression. Previously, we reported the characterization of BORIS-MS2 and determined the frequency of alleles in cancer patients. A case-control study was performed using DNA from 774 controls and 496 patients with gastric cancer. There was no significant difference observed in the overall distribution of minisatellite alleles. These results suggest that additional different regulators for the abnormal BORIS expression in gastric cancer may exist. Additionally, we performed a segregation analysis of BORIS-MS2 with genomic DNA obtained from two generations of five families and from three generations of two families. BORIS-MS2 alleles were transmitted through meiosis following Mendelian inheritance, which suggests that this polymorphic minisatellite could be a useful marker for paternity mapping and DNA fingerprinting.