الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Introduction: Breast cancer is a prevalent malignant disease characterized by abnormal cell growth in the breast tissue. It affects women of various age groups from adolescence to post-menopause. Galectins, which belong to a family of carbohydrate-binding proteins, are well-known for their multifaceted and profound influence on a wide range of essential cellular functions and biological processes. Investigating how galectins influence breast cancer progression may offer insights for prognostic and targeted therapeutic advancements. Patients and Methods: We designed and manufactured custom kits for RNA extraction and qRT-PCR, which we used to analyze gene expression of galectins and EMT markers in 40 breast cancer patients, present in National Cancer Institute (NCI), Cairo University (CU). Results: Our successful development of custom kits for this study, using triphasic phenol reagent and purified Taq polymerase and MMLV enzymes, played a pivotal role in facilitating the investigation. These kits served as an essential tool in our research, allowed us to conduct a comprehensive investigation on galectins gene expression and EMT markers in samples of breast cancer patients. The results of our study showed a consistent downregulation in gene expression across all the studied galectin genes, except for LGALS-7, which exhibited a remarkable upregulation of 47.5%. We identified a strong correlation between the gene expression of individual members within the galectin family. Furthermore, our investigation showed a parallel downregulation in EMT markers. Importantly, the study showed correlation between the gene expression of galectins and EMT markers, suggesting a compelling relation between these two molecular aspects. Conclusion: Our custom kits enabled us to make a gene profiling study. Galectins mostly showed downregulation, except LGALS-7 which was upregulated. We also observed reduced EMT markers and a strong galectin-EMT association. |