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Significance of twist and iNOS expression in human breast carcinoma

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Abstract

Twist is a basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor family normally expressed during embryonic development and apparently activated in variety of tumours. Overexpression of twist is correlated with uncontrolled cell proliferation, differentiation, invasion and metastasis. Twist expression is associated with oestrogen receptor (ER); however, the molecular mechanism behind involvement of twist in progression of breast cancer is still unclear. Nitric oxide synthases (NOSs) which cause damage to the cellular DNA are also shown to be involved in cancer progression. The present study involves total number of n = 85 breast biopsies, which include 19 non-cancer and 66 cancerous lesions. We analysed twist, iNOS and ER expression pattern in human breast carcinomas by RT-PCR and also analysed twist cellular localisation by immunohistochemical analysis. iNOS expression pattern was correlated with different stages of breast carcinoma. Twist expression was significantly increased in cancer lesions when compared to the non-cancer. The breast cancer lesions positive to ER showed positivity to twist (72 %) as well. The higher stages of cancer lesions showed a significant expression of twist localised in cytoplasm of the cancer cells. Collectively these data indicate that up-regulation of twist is correlated with the ER presenting breast cancer, and iNOS expression was positively correlated with tumour-node metastasis (TNM) staging of breast cancer. These findings suggest that expression of twist and iNOS may have a functional role in cancer progression.

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Acknowledgments

The first author thanks University Grants Commission (UGC) and Council for Industrial and Scientific research (CSIR) for financial assistance in the form of Senior Research Fellowship (SRF). We thank Dr. N. T. Balasubramanian, Retd Proffessor, Kerala University, India, for statistical analysis. We also thank Dr. Lalith, Dr. Gunasekaran and Dr. Chithra, Department of Surgery, Madras Medical College, Chennai, for the kind help towards the collection of samples. We thank all the patients involved in this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry, University of Madras, Guindy campus, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

    Santhalakshmi Ranganathan & Niranjali Devaraj Sivasithambaram

  2. Department of Surgery, Madras Medical College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

    Arunkumar Krishnan

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  1. Santhalakshmi Ranganathan
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Correspondence to Santhalakshmi Ranganathan.

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All the procedures are performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional ethical committee and with the 1964 Heisinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Ranganathan, S., Krishnan, A. & Sivasithambaram, N.D. Significance of twist and iNOS expression in human breast carcinoma. Mol Cell Biochem 412, 41–47 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11010-015-2606-9

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