Objective: Global hypomethylation is a common epigenetic event in cancer. Keratocystic odontogenic tumor (KCOT) and ameloblastoma are different tumors but posses the same tissue in origin. Here, we investigated long interspersed nuclear element-1 (LINE-1 or L1) methylation status between ameloblastoma and KCOT.
Materials and methods: We studied the methylation levels of the long interspersed nucleotide element-1 (LINE-1) in ameloblastoma and KCOT. After collecting ameloblastoma cells and epithelium lining cells of KCOT by laser capture microdissection from paraffin embedded tissue, combined bisulfite restriction analysis of LINE-1 (COBRALINE-1) was performed to measure LINE-1 methylation levels.
Results: The LINE-1 methylation level in KCOT (53.16 +/- 12.03%) was higher than that in ameloblastoma (36.90 +/- 16.52%), with a statistical significance of P = 0.001. The ranges of LINE-1 methylation of both lesions were not associated with either age or sex.
Conclusion: We found LINE-1 hypomethylation levels between ameloblastoma and KCOT are different. Therefore, global methylations between these tumors are processed differently.