The research for the classification by molecular biology and the development of a novel therapy in squamous cell carcinomas of the skin

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Squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) of the skin are supposed to develop through the multistep process that involves activation of proto-oncogenes and/or inactivation of tumor suppressor genes in the human skin keratinocytes. Recently, in addition to gene mutations and chromosomal abnormalities, epigenetic inactivation due to aberrant DNA promoter methylation of cancer-related genes has been revealed to be a common and important feature of several cancers. In this study, we analyzed promoter methylation status of E-cadherin, p16^<INK4a>, p14^<ARF>, p15, pRb, DAPK, MGMT, RASSF1A, RIZ1, and PTEN by means of bisulfite PCR using DNA samples from 20 cases of SCCs of the skin. Promoter methylation was detected in 19/20 (95%), 4/20 (20%), 3/20 (15%), 1/20 (5%), 1/20 (5%), 3/20 (15%), 3/20 (15%), 1/20 (5%), 0/20 (0%), and 0/20 (0%), respectively. These findings indicate that epigenetic inactivation of cancer-related genes might be a common feature of SCCs of the skin and have some relevance to the carcinogenesis in SCCs of the skin.