Comprehensive and integrative analysis identifies COX7A1 as a critical methylation-driven gene in breast invasive carcinoma

BackgroundAberrant DNA methylation plays a crucial part in cancer progression through the silencing of gene expression. The purpose of this article was to investigate the DNA methylation-driven genes in breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA) by using integrated bioinformatics analysis and in vitro experiments.MethodsThe methylation and expression profile data of BRCA patients were downloaded from the TCGA database. Besides, the MethylMix algorithm was performed to distinguish differentially methylation-driven genes. Moreover, methylation-specific PCR was used to test the methylation-driven genes.ResultsA total of 218 differentially expressed methylation-driven genes were obtained. Then, four of these genes were applied to establish a prognostic risk model. Moreover, we found that hypermethylation was in the CpG islands of the promoter of COX7A1 gene in BRCA tissues. Furthermore, we found that COX7A1 was significantly down-regulated BRCA tissues and the COX7A1 expression level was markedly increased in BRCA cells after 5-Aza-dC treatment.ConclusionsOur study reveals that aberrant promoter hypermethylation is critical for COX7A1 gene silencing in BRCA and that COX7A1 emerge as a new biomarker and therapeutic target for BRCA.