Discovering the key genes and important DNA methylation regions in breast cancer

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is the malignant tumor with the highest incidence in women. DNA methylation has an important effect on breast cancer, but the effect of abnormal DNA methylation on gene expression in breast cancer is still unclear. Therefore, it is very important to find therapeutic targets related to DNA methylation. RESULTS: In this work, we calculated the DNA methylation distribution and gene expression level in cancer and para-cancerous tissues for breast cancer samples. We found that DNA methylation in key regions is closely related to gene expression by analyzing the relationship between the distribution characteristics of DNA methylation in different regions and the change of gene expression level. Finally, the 18 key genes (17 tumor suppressor genes and 1 oncogene) related to prognosis were confirmed by the survival analysis of clinical data. Some important DNA methylation regions in these genes that result in breast cancer were found. CONCLUSIONS: We believe that 17 TSGs and 1 oncogene may be breast cancer biomarkers regulated by DNA methylation in key regions. These results will help to explore DNA methylation biomarkers as potential therapeutic targets for breast cancer. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s41065-022-00220-5.