Human BCAP31 ELISA Matched Antibody Pair

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease for which alterations in DNA methylation patterns have been shown to be of biological and clinical importance. Here we report on the integrated analysis of molecular alterations including the methylation status of 27 gene promoters analyzed by highly quantitative pyrosequencing, and the association to gene expression, germline genotype and clinical parameters including survival. Breast cancer specific deregulation of DNA methylation (both hyper- and hypomethylation) was found in twenty genes including ACVR1, OGG1, IL8 and TFF1. The methylation level in the promoter regions was significantly negatively correlated to gene expression for twelve genes (such as MST1R, ST6GAL1 and TFF1) indicating that a gain of aberrant methylation (hypermethylation) inhibits gene expression. Multiple associations between molecular and clinical parameters were identified, and multivariate statistical analysis demonstrated that methylation was more strongly associated to clinical parameters than gene expression for the investigated genes. The methylation level of BCAP31 and OGG1 showed significant association to survival, and these associations were validated in a larger patient cohort (The Cancer Genome Atlas). Our study provides evidence for the promise of DNA methylation alterations for clinical applications. What's new? The heterogenous nature of breast cancer is influenced by alterations in DNA methylation, deregulation of which may result in hypermethylation or hypomethylation. Here, DNA methylation was found to be specifically deregulated in breast cancer for 20 genes, in 12 of which hypermethylation was associated with the inhibition of gene expression. Methylation status was further associated with clinical parameters, including overall survival in breast cancer. The findings indicate that analyses of alterations in DNA methylation could be of clinical prognostic value for breast cancer.

To study gene expression within the mammary glands of dairy goats with mastitis, mRNA was collected from milk somatic cells (MSCs) of left udder halves challenged with Staphylococcus aureus and right udder halves infused with PBS, as control, at different time points (0, 12, 24 and 48 h post-infection). Transcriptional profiles were investigated using bovine cDNA microarrays; of the total 288 differentially expressed genes identified with ANOVA analysis (False Discovery Rate = 0.05, 1.5-fold change), 26,36 and 16 genes were down-regulated at 12, 24 and 48 h post-infection, respectively, while 60, 141 and 9 genes were up-regulated at the same corresponding time points. The expression profiles clearly changed at 24 h post-infection with 177 genes significantly altered, corresponding to a 10-fold increase of S. aureus bacterial count in milk from infected udders. Differential expression of selected genes (CD2BP2, BCAP31, MHCII, FOSL2, MAPK13, ILT5 and JUNB) was also confirmed by real-time PCR at the different time points considered, showing high correlation with the microarray measurements and high reliability of the microarray analyses. The most readily inducible classes of genes in caprine MSCs infected with S. aureus were pro-inflammatory cytokines, chemokines and their receptors; IL-1 alpha, lymphotoxin alpha, granulocyte chemotactic protein (CXCL6), and IL-2 receptor gamma were all up-regulated in infected udders versus healthy controls. This study identified a number of differentially expressed genes induced by S. aureus intramammary infection and demonstrates the intricacy of the patterns of gene expression that influence host response to a complex pathogen of significant relevance to both human and veterinary medicine. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.