DNA Methylome Distinguishes Oropharyngeal and Oral Cancer from Oral Lesions and Healthy Oral Mucosa Milutin Gašperov Nina (
[email protected] ) Institut Ruder Boskovic Ivan Sabol Institut Ruder Boskovic Ksenija Božinović Institut Ruder Boskovic Emil Dediol Klinicka Bolnica Dubrava Marinka Mravak-Stipetić Sveuciliste u Zagrebu Stomatoloski fakultet Danilo Licastro CBM Scrl Simeone Dal Monego CBM Scrl Magdalena Grce (
[email protected] ) Institut Ruder Boskovic https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6178-8418 Research Keywords: DNA methylation, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), potentially premalignant oral lesions, healthy oral mucosa, human papillomavirus (HPV) Posted Date: April 3rd, 2020 DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-17778/v1 License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Read Full License Page 1/30 Abstract Background: There is a strong need to nd new, good biomarkers of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), because of the prognoses and high mortality of patients. The aim of this study was to identify the potential biomarkers in HNSCC that have differences in their DNA methylome and potentially premalignant oral lesions, in comparison to healthy oral mucosa. Methods: In this study 32 oral samples were tested: 9 healthy oral mucosae, 13 HNSCC and 10 potentially premalignant oral lesions for DNA methylation by Innium MethylationEPIC BeadChip. Results: Our ndings showed a panel of genes signicantly hypermethylated in their promoters or specic sites in HNSCC samples in comparison to healthy oral samples, which are mainly oncogenes, receptor and transcription factor genes, or genes included in cell cycle, transformation, apoptosis and autophagy. A group of hypomethylated genes in HNSCC, in comparison to healthy oral mucosa, is mainly involved in the host immune response and transcriptional regulation.