Identifying Potential Drivers of Differential DNA Methylation Patterns in Breast Cancer Cells

Global changes in DNA methylation and chromatin modifications are common in breast cancer. Tumors from cancer patients can be categorized based on differential DNA methylation patterns; some of which have been linked to poor prognosis. Correlations between chromatin and DNA methylation patterns are well established in normal cells. However, the interplay between these marks has not been explored in breast cancer cells. We hypothesize that alterations in chromatin modifiers drive global changes in DNA methylation observed in breast tumors. Using breast cancer data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) we identified alterations in chromatin modifying proteins that correlate with changes in DNA methylation patterns. We then validated the ability of these proteins to affect DNA methylation. These results will improve our understanding of the mechanism used to establish DNA methylation patterns in breast cancer cells. This research is funded by grant R25HG00668703.