Consistent with the results in cells, 18 out of 24 (75.0 %) samples were methylated in BC tissues, while only 5 out of 24 (20.8 %) samples were methylated in the matched adjacent tissues of BC, suggesting that the methylation status of DBCCR1 in BC was statistical significant higher than controls (Fig. 2d, e; Additional file 1: Fig. S2). The gene discussed is BRINP1; the disease is breast cancer.