Fig. 4

FERD3L methylation and transcript levels in patients and cell lines. a FERD3L gene expression levels (qRT-PCR) and methylation levels (pyrosequencing) in a set of TNBC cell lines. FERD3L was methylated in all the cell lines studied (≥ 40%) correlating with the gene expression detected. b Variation in FERD3L methylation and gene expression in MDA-MB-436 cell line after AZA (5 uM) treatment. Cells showed a decrease in methylation level (p = 0.05) that correlated with a statistically significant increase in gene expression (p = 0.0022) when they were treated with AZA and compared with control cells not treated with AZA agent. c qRT-PCR results for FERD3L gene in TNBC patients (DC + VC). Non-responder group showed higher gene expression levels than responder group (p = 0.04) correlating with methylation levels obtained both in 450K array and pyrosequencing. d Spearman correlation between methylation and gene expression for FERD3L gene in a population of breast cancer patients (n = 713) from TCGA database. The result showed a correlation between a high gene methylation and a low gene expression when analyzed all the CpGs in the FERD3L gene promoter or only the cg10043037 identified in the 450K array