We applied the Infinium HumanMethylation450 Beadchip (HM450K) array to blood and tumor-derived DNA from 43 women diagnosed with breast cancer before the age of 40 years and measured the methylation profiles across promoter regions of BRCA1, BRCA2, ATM, PALB2, CDH1, TP53, FANCM, CHEK2, MLH1, MSH2, MSH6 and PMS2. Prior genetic testing had demonstrated that these women did not carry a germline mutation in BRCA1, ATM, CHEK2, PALB2, TP53, BRCA2, CDH1 or FANCM. Here, BRCA1 is linked to breast cancer.