Song et al (2013) examined the association between cancer related genes (named P16, MGMT and HMLH1) with the prevalence of MTHFR in patients with gastric cancer. 322 patients with gastric cancer were examined. Hypermethylation of the P16, MGMT and HMLH1 genes found within cancer tissue were found to be 75.2%, 27.6% and 5.3% respectively. This was compared to normal-appearing tissue exhibiting hypermethylation of the P16 and MGMT genes at 29.5% and 16.1% respectively. Patients with MTHFR 677TT mutations were found to have significant risk of hypermethylation of MGMT within cancer tissue. Overall, the presence of DNA hypermethylation of cancer related genes was highly evident, which could therefore be used as predictive biomarkers in the detection of gastric cancer.
