OPCML is hypermethylated in a subset of patients with metaplastic changes in their esophagus

OPCML hypermethylation is considered a promising cancer biomarker. We examined methylation levels in the first exon of OPCML in two patient cohorts within the esophageal adenocarcinoma and gastric adenocarcinoma cascades and in a range of cell-lines using a custom PyroMark CpG assay. Methylation levels were significantly higher in esophageal tissue with histologically confirmed glandular mucosa as compared to tissue from normal esophagi or gastro-esophageal reflux disease. Higher levels of OPCML methylation were absent in the adjacent normal esophageal tissue of patients with glandular mucosa. Higher levels of methylation were confirmed in cell-lines derived from patients with adenocarcinoma, but also detected in two cell-lines with signs of dysplasia. We validated our assay by showing no differences in methylation levels in DNA extracted from blood of patients within the gastric adenocarcinoma cascade. OPCML hypermethylation is present in a subset of patients with metaplastic changes in their esophagus.