Joint Effects of WT1, CA10 Methylation in Peripheral Blood Leukocyte and Dietary Zinc on Breast Cancer Risk: a Case-Control Study
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Joint effects of WT1, CA10 methylation in peripheral blood leukocyte and dietary zinc on breast cancer risk: a case-control study Anqi Ge Harbin Medical University School of Public Health Song Gao Tumor Hospital of Harbin Medical University Yupeng Liu Harbin Medical University School of Public Health Hui Zhang Harbin Medical University School of Public Health Xuan Wang Harbin Medical University School of Public Health Lei Zhang Harbin Medical University School of Public Health Da Pang Tumor Hospital of Harbin Medical University Yashuang Zhao ( [email protected] ) Harbin Medical University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7425-5773 Research article Keywords: breast cancer, CA10, WT1, DNA methylation, leukocytes, zinc Posted Date: May 27th, 2020 DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-27678/v1 License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Read Full License Version of Record: A version of this preprint was published on July 31st, 2020. See the published version at https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-020-07183- 8. Page 1/12 Abstract Background Studies have shown that abnormal changes of specic-gene DNA methylation in leukocytes may be associated with elevated risk of cancer. However, associations between the methylation of zinc-related genes, WT1 and CA10, and breast cancer risk, and interactions between WT1, CA10 methylation and dietary zinc intake on breast cancer risk remain unknown. Methods The methylation of WT1, CA10 was analyzed by methylation-sensitive high-resolution-melting (MS-HRM) in a case-control study with female subjects (N = 959). Logistic regression was used to analyze the associations and propensity score (PS) method was used to adjust confounders. Results The results showed that WT1 hypermethylation was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer with an odds ratio (OR) of 3.069 [95% condence interval (CI): 1.669–5.643, P < 0.001]. Subgroup analyses showed that WT1 hypermethylation was specically associated with an elevated risk of Luminal A subtype (OR = 2.620, 95%CI: 1.107-6.200, P = 0.029) and Luminal B subtype (OR = 3.231, 95%CI: 1.339–7.796, P = 0.009). CA10 hypermethylation was associated with an increased risk of Luminal B subtype (OR = 1.798, 95%CI: 1.085–2.982, P = 0.023). Furthermore, the joint effects of methylation of WT1, CA10 and lower dietary zinc intake were associated a strongly elevated risk of breast cancer with ORs of 11.220 (95%CI: 4.057–31.032, P < 0.001) and 4.145 (95%CI: 2.717–6.324, P < 0.001), respectively. Conclusion The study suggested the hypermethylation of WT1 methylation in leukocytes was signicantly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. Notably, the joint effects of WT1, CA10 methylation and lower dietary zinc intake might signicantly associate with breast cancer risk. Introduction Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies in women worldwide [1] and presents with different molecular subtypes, including luminal A, luminal B, HER2-enriched, and basal-like that also called triple negative [2]. As a major type of epigenetic modication, DNA methylation involves in regulating cellular processes, including chromosomal instability [3] and gene expression. Hypermethylation of CpG regions in specic genes contribute to neoplastic formation through the transcriptional silencing of tumor suppressor genes. Aberrant patterns of specic gene methylation can help identifying differences in breast cancer subtypes [2], and showing promise for utilizing in large-scale epidemiological studies. It is suggested that leukocyte DNA methylation, as simple non-invasive blood markers [4, 5], could serve as a surrogate of systematic methylation activity, which offered great potential for predicting the increasing breast cancer risk [6]. Wilm’s Tumor gene (WT1) is tumor suppressor gene which involved in human cell growth and differentiation. WT1 have been reported signicantly different methylated in the tissues of hepatocellular carcinoma [7], lung cancer [8] and breast cancer [9]. WT1 aberrant methylation may lead to the reduction or absence of expression of WT1, which results in the overexpression of the insulin-like growth factor I receptor (IGF 1R) and insulin-like growth factor II (IGF II), therefore promotes breast cancer process [10–12]. CA10 is a member of the carbonic anhydrase family, which is a large family of zinc-containing metalloenzymes that catalyze the reversible hydration of carbon dioxide and the dehydration of carbonic acid [13]. Ivanov et al. suggested that induction or enhancement of carbonic anhydrase expression may contribute to the tumor microenvironment by maintaining extracellular acidic pH and helping cancer cells grow and metastasize [14]. Studies have found the abnormal expression of carbonic anhydrase family by aberrant methylation was related with gastric cancer and metastasis of ovary tumors [15, 16]. Furthermore, Wojdacz et al. reported that both WT1 and CA10 hypermethylation were signicantly different between breast cancer tumor tissues and non-malignant tissues [17]. However, the methylation of these two genes in leukocyte DNA affects breast cancer susceptibility remains unclear. In recent years, nutri-epigenetics, the inuence of dietary components on the epigenome, has emerged as an exciting new eld [18]. While earlier studies have shown that high dietary zinc intake could decrease cancer risk [19, 20], the association of zinc intake and breast cancer risk remained controversial [21, 22]. Zinc deciency may inuence the function of zinc related genes, including changes the expression of WT1 in zinc deciency animal model [23], and decreases blood carbonic anhydrase activity in males in a double-blind, randomized crossover study [24]. Hu et al. discovered that zinc deciency increased BDNF methylation level in in vitro experiment [25]. However, studies have yet examined the associations between dietary intake of zinc and zinc related genes, WT1 and CA10, genes methylation in white blood cells with breast cancer risk. In this study, we explored the associations between the methylation of WT1, CA10 in peripheral blood leukocyte DNA and breast cancer risk. We further used a dataset of nested case-control cohort within the EPIC-Italy cohort study as external data to validate the association between gene methylation and breast cancer risk. We also investigated the associations between the methylation of two genes and the risk of different molecular types of breast Page 2/12 cancer. Furthermore, we examined the interaction and combination effects between methylation of the genes with dietary zinc intake on the risk of breast cancer. Materials And Methods Study subjects We investigated the relationship between WT1, CA10 methylation and breast cancer risk using a case-control study. All included breast cancer patients were newly diagnosed female and were recruited from the Tumor Hospital of Harbin Medical University from 2010 to 2014. Controls were recruited from patients admitted to the Orthopedic and Ophthalmology Department of the Second Aliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University and volunteers from the Xiangfang community of Harbin within the same period. All controls were also female. In addition, all control participants were asked about their disease history in the questionnaire and the ones with any cancer history were excluded from our nal subjects. Finally, 402 female breast cancer cases and 557 female controls were included in our study. Informed written consent was provided by all the subjects, and 5 mL blood samples were collected and then stored at − 80 °C. This study was approved by the Human Research and Ethics Committee of Harbin Medical University. Data collection All subjects were interviewed face-to-face by trained investigators with normalized questioning methods. The questionnaire was adopted from the study of Shu et al. [26], which included demographic information (age, ethnicity, and others); daily dietary intake (vegetables, fruits, beverages, and snacks); behaviors (smoking, drinking, physical activity and work activity); female-specic questions involving menstruation status, breast disease history (lobular hyperplasia, cyst, and others); gynecologic surgery history (hysterectomy, ovariotomy) and family history of cancer and breast cancer. The questions involved in dietary and behavioral were about the participants’ daily routine of one year prior to the interview. The daily dietary intake information were collected with Food Frequency Questionnaire contained 9 major food groups, which represented approximately 77 food items including Chinese staple foods, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, soybean products, meat products, egg, sea-food and fungus. The zinc intake derived from nutrient supplement was also included. The content of zinc in different foods were derived and calculated based on country specic food composition, Chinese Food Composition Table [27]. The study was validated with GEO-GSE51032 (IPEC-Italy cohort) dataset with nested case control study design to analyze the association between the methylation of CA10, WT1 and breast cancer risk in female. The blood samples were also collected and other anthropometric measurements were taken. The detailed criteria for sample selection and the methods were reported by Riboli et al. [28]. We extracted all 232 female breast cancer cases and all 340 female controls from this nested case-control study and located the methylation probes from Illumina 450 K array. The annotated CG sites covered by our MS-HRM sequence were illustrated