Concurrent Down-regulation of the EAF1 and the EAF2 Genes in the Invasive Ductal Carcinoma Type of Breast Cancer

Abstract

In mammals, the EAF1 and EAF2 genes build an active transcription module with other components. These genes code for factors acting as potent inhibitor of the Wnt-β catenin pathway, which might be due to their function as tumor suppressor gene. Recently, the involvement of both above-mentioned factors was described in some human tumors, but not yet in breast cancer. Breast cancer is one of the most cancer cases in Iran after colon and stomach carcinoma. We aimed therefore to investigate for the first time a possible correlation between breast cancer and the EAF1 and the EAF2 gene expression. We collected invasive ductal carcinoma tumor grading (grade 1 to 3) with marginal normal tissue from forty women diagnosed with breast cancer with the average age of 50 years old. All patients underwent triple marker test (ER/PR and Her2/neu), indeed the most of them were triple positive with few triple negative individuals. After RNA extraction, cDNA was synthesized for subsequent real-time polymerase chain reaction. The humanRPL27 gene wasusedas endogenous control. Analysis of real-time PCR results showeda significant down-regulation of EAF1 (p-value: 0.028), and of EAF2 (p-value: 0.0134) in tumor tissue samples in comparison to normal one.There was no correlation between clinical parameters and the target genes. We could find significant connection between both tumor suppressor genes in triple positive and triple negative breast cancer patients, which deserves more attention.