Clinical significance of DAPK promoter hypermethylation in lung cancer: a meta-analysis

• Main Authors: Li Y (Author), Zhu M (Author), Zhang X (Author), Cheng D (Author), Ma X (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Dove Medical Press, 2015-03-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 1177-8881
• Keywords: Therapeutics. Pharmacology; RM1-950
• Source: Drug Design, Development and Therapy, Vol 2015, Iss default, Pp 1785-1796 (2015)

Ying Li, Min Zhu, Xiaoju Zhang, Dongjun Cheng, Xitao Ma Department of&nbsp;Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Henan&nbsp;Provincial&nbsp;People&rsquo;s&nbsp;Hospital,&nbsp; Zhengzhou, People&rsquo;s Republic of&nbsp;China Abstract: Death-associated&nbsp;protein&nbsp;kinase 1 (DAPK) is an important serine/threonine kinase involved in various cellular processes, including apoptosis, autophagy, and inflammation.&nbsp;DAPK&nbsp;expression and activity are deregulated in a variety of diseases including&nbsp;cancer.&nbsp;Methylation of the&nbsp;DAPK&nbsp;gene is common in many types of&nbsp;cancer&nbsp;and can lead to loss of&nbsp;DAPK&nbsp;expression.&nbsp;However, the association between&nbsp;DAPK&nbsp;promoter hypermethylation and&nbsp;the clinicopathological significance of lung cancer remains unclear. In this study, we searched the MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases, systematically investigated the studies of&nbsp;DAPK&nbsp;promoter hypermethylation&nbsp;in&nbsp;lung&nbsp;cancer and quantified the association between&nbsp;DAPK&nbsp;promoter hypermethylation&nbsp;and&nbsp;its clinicopathological significance by meta-analysis. We observed that the frequency of DAPK methylation was significantly higher in lung cancer than in non-malignant lung tissues (odds ratio 6.02, 95% confidence interval 3.17&ndash;11.42, P<0.00001). The pooled results also showed the presence of a prognostic impact of DAPK gene methylation in lung cancer patients (odds ratio 3.63, 95% confidence interval 1.09&ndash;12.06, P=0.04). In addition, we summarized these findings and discuss tumor suppressor function, clinicopathological significance, and potential drug targeting of&nbsp;DAPK&nbsp;in lung cancer. Keywords: lung, adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, non-small cell lung cancer, death-associated protein kinase gene, DAPK, methylation, meta-analysis