These findings suggest that DNA methylation-mediated silencing of the neurofilament genes NEFH, NEFM, and NEFL are frequent events that may contribute to the progression of breast cancer and possibly other malignancies.
The results show that the expression of NEFL induces cancer cell apoptosis and inhibits invasion in these cell lines, suggesting that NEFL may play a role in cancer cell apoptosis and invasion.
NEFL, one of the in silico hypermethylated genes in cancer, showed hypermethylation and lower expression in the cancer cell line MDA-MB-231, as well as in cancer tissues (methylation, p<0.05; expression, p<0.01).
Deletion mapping of tumours with chromosome 8 LOH suggests the presence of a suppressor gene(s) for urothelial cancer within a region defined by the loci NEFL and PLAT (8p21-q11.2).