ArticleMolecular and cellular biology1999
DNA methylation is the primary silencing mechanism for a set of germ line- and tumor-specific genes with a CpG-rich promoter.
Article in Molecular and cellular biology, 1999. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 228 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
228 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 592 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prognostic Value of Melanoma-Associated Antigen-A (MAGE-A) Gene Expression in Various Human Cancers: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of 7428 Patients and 44 Studies.Molecular diagnosis & therapy · 2020Pooled it
- The Emerging World of TCR-T Cell Trials Against Cancer: A Systematic Review.Technology in cancer research & treatment · 2019Pooled it
- Abnormal Hypermethylation at Imprinting Control Regions in Patients with S-Adenosylhomocysteine Hydrolase (AHCY) Deficiency.PloS one · 2016Trial
- Ubiquinol decreases monocytic expression and DNA methylation of the pro-inflammatory chemokine ligand 2 gene in humans.BMC research notes · 2012Trial
- Epigenetic regulation in cancer metastasis.Discover oncology · 2026Review
- Cross-Species Upregulation ofCurrent issues in molecular biology · 2026Article
- Cancer vaccines as enablers of immunotherapy.Nature immunology · 2025Review
- A survey of human cancer-germline genes: Linking X chromosome localization, DNA methylation and sex-biased expression in early embryos.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
- DNA-demethylation by DAC inducesMolecular therapy. Oncology · 2025Article
- Hsp90Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Melanoma-associated antigen A4: A cancer/testis antigen as a target for adoptive T-cell receptor T-cell therapy.Cancer treatment reviews · 2025Review
- Unveiling the significance of cancer-testis antigens and their implications for immunotherapy in glioma.Discover oncology · 2024Review
- Activating the dark genome to illuminate cancer vaccine targets.Nature genetics · 2024Article
- Cancer/testis antigen expression and co-expression patterns in gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma.Medical oncology (Northwood, London, England) · 2024Article
- Microproteins encoded by noncanonical ORFs are a major source of tumor-specific antigens in a liver cancer patient meta-cohort.Science advances · 2024Article
- The potential value of cancer-testis antigens in ovarian cancer: Prognostic markers and targets for immunotherapy.Immunity, inflammation and disease · 2024Review
- T cell receptor therapeutics: immunological targeting of the intracellular cancer proteome.Nature reviews. Drug discovery · 2023Review
- How the Intrinsically Disordered N-Terminus of Cancer/Testis Antigen MAGEA10 Is Responsible for Its Expression, Nuclear Localisation and Aberrant Migration.Biomolecules · 2023Article
- The Interplay between Dysregulated Metabolism and Epigenetics in Cancer.Biomolecules · 2023Review
- Review
168 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A subset of male germ line-specific genes, the MAGE-type genes, are activated in many human tumors, where they produce tumor-specific antigens recognized by cytolytic T lymphocytes. Previous studies on gene MAGE-A1 indicated that transcription factors regulating its expression are present in all tumor cell lines whether or not they express the gene. The analysis of two CpG sites located in the promoter showed a strong correlation between expression and demethylation. It was also shown that MAGE-A1 transcription was induced in cell cultures treated with demethylating agent 5'-aza-2'-deoxycytidine. We have now analyzed all of the CpG sites within the 5' region of MAGE-A1 and show that for all of them, demethylation correlates with the transcription of the gene. We also show that the induction of MAGE-A1 with 5'-aza-2'-deoxycytidine is stable and that in all the cell clones it correlates with demethylation, indicating that demethylation is necessary and sufficient to produce expression. Conversely, transfection experiments with in vitro-methylated MAGE-A1 sequences indicated that heavy methylation suffices to stably repress the gene in cells containing the transcription factors required for expression. Most MAGE-type genes were found to have promoters with a high CpG content. Remarkably, although CpG-rich promoters are classically unmethylated in all normal tissues, those of MAGE-A1 and LAGE-1 were highly methylated in somatic tissues. In contrast, they were largely unmethylated in male germ cells. We conclude that MAGE-type genes belong to a unique subset of germ line-specific genes that use DNA methylation as a primary silencing mechanism.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.