@Article{096504021X16214197880808,
AUTHOR = {Rosa Della Monica, Mariella Cuomo, Roberta Visconti, Annabella di Mauro, Michela Buonaiuto, 
Davide Costabile, Giulia De Riso, Teodolinda Di Risi, Elia Guadagno, Roberto Tafuto, 
Sabrina Lamia, Alessandro Ottaiano, Paolo Cappabianca, Maria Laura Del Basso de Caro, Fabiana Tatangelo, Juergen Hench, Stephan Frank, Salvatore Tafuto, Lorenzo Chiariotti},
TITLE = {Evaluation of <i>MGMT</i> Gene Methylation in Neuroendocrine Neoplasms},
JOURNAL = {Oncology Research},
VOLUME = {28},
YEAR = {2020},
NUMBER = {9},
PAGES = {837--845},
URL = {http://www.techscience.com/or/v28n9/48479},
ISSN = {1555-3906},
ABSTRACT = {Unresectable neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs) often poorly respond to standard therapeutic approaches. 
Alkylating agents, in particular temozolomide, commonly used to treat high-grade brain tumors including glioblastomas, have recently been tested in advanced or metastatic NENs, where they showed promising response 
rates. In glioblastomas, prediction of response to temozolomide is based on the assessment of the methylation 
status of the <i>MGMT</i> gene, as its product, O6
-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase, may counteract the damaging effects of the alkylating agent. However, in NENs, such a biomarker has not been validated yet. Thus, we 
have investigated <i>MGMT</i> methylation in 42 NENs of different grades and from various sites of origin by two 
different approaches: in contrast to methylation-specific PCR (MSP), which is commonly used in glioblastoma 
management, amplicon bisulfite sequencing (ABS) is based on high-resolution, next-generation sequencing 
and interrogates several additional CpG sites compared to those covered by MSP. Overall, we found <i>MGMT</i>
methylation in 74% (31/42) of the NENs investigated. A higher methylation degree was observed in welldifferentiated tumors and in tumors originating in the gastrointestinal tract. Comparing MSP and ABS results, 
we demonstrate that the region analyzed by the MSP test is sufficiently informative of the <i>MGMT</i> methylation 
status in NENs, suggesting that this predictive parameter could routinely be interrogated also in NENs.},
DOI = {10.3727/096504021X16214197880808}
}