No evidence for DNA methylation of von Hippel-Lindau ubiquitin ligase complex genes in breast cancer

Abstract

pVHL is the central component of an ubiquitin ligase complex that targets hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) for proteasomal degradation. This complex includes four other genes, Cullin 2 (CUL2), elongin C (TCEB1), elongin B (TCEB2) and ring-box 1 (RBX1). VHL has previously been reported to be methylated in sporadic renal cell carcinoma. Since HIF-1α is frequently expressed in breast carcinomas, we evaluated DNA methylation as a possible mechanism of silencing one or more of the VHL complex genes. Methylation-specific high resolution melting (MS-HRM) was used to screen the proximal promoter CpG islands for methylation of the VHL ubiquitin ligase complex genes. We were unable to identify met..