the relationship between promoter methylation of rassf1a gene and prognosis of patients affected with breast cancer in khuzestan province

Background: dna methylation is one of the most frequent molecular changes that are associated with human cancers. tumor suppressor genes are the important targets of hypermethylation in breast cancer and thus may result in cancer by deregulation of cell growth and division. objectives: the purpose of this research was to compare the methylation pattern of the rassf1a gene in cancerous and normal tissues. methods: twenty breast cancer patients with known clinicopathologic characteristics and 20 healthy women as control were studied for analysis of the methylation status of the rassf1a gene promoter by methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (ms-pcr) technique. results: the findings showed that the frequency of rassf1a promoter methylation was in 15% of tumor tissues and 5% of normal tissues. these results indicate that there is no statistically significant relationship between the rassf1a promoter methylation status of tumor tissues and normal tissues (p > 0.05). conclusions: until now, the evidence for powerful methylation biomarkers is still incomplete and the recognized biomarkers require further validation.