Mosaic Epigenetic Inheritance as a Cause of Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer

IMPORTANCE: Constitutional hypermethylation of 1 allele throughout the soma (constitutional epimutation) is an accepted mechanism of cancer predisposition. Understanding the origin and inheritance of epimutations is important for assessing cancer risk in affected families. OBSERVATIONS: We report a 29-year-old man with early-onset colorectal cancer who showed a constitutional MLH1 epimutation (approximately 50% of alleles methylated and allele-specific loss of MLH1 expression) that was stable over a 16-year period. The epimutation was inherited without a genetic alteration from his asymptomatic mother. She showed methylation on the same allele but in less than 5% of her somatic cells. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: These findings indicate that low-level somatic mosaicism for an epimutation in an asymptomatic parent can produce a nonmosaic constitutional epimutation in a child. Asymptomatic low-level methylation in some individuals may be associated with substantial cancer risk to their offspring.