Alteration of GLIS3 gene expression pattern in patients with breast cancer

BACKGROUND: The GLIS family members are zinc fingers with transcriptional repression and activation function. GLIS3 is one of these family members, which aberrant expression of it revealed to be related to several different cancer types. Regarding to the role of GLIS3 in tumor genesis and its probable connection with β-catenin signaling pathway, one of the pathways that involves in both normal development and tumor genesis of breast tissue, the aim of this study is investigating the alteration of GLIS3 mRNA expression level in breast cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Real-time polymerase chain reaction performed with GLIS3 and GAPDH genes primer on the RNA which extracted from 15 fresh frozen breast tumor tissue samples and also 15 normal samples with slight distance from site of tumor. RESULTS: The relative expression of GLIS3 in breast cancer tissues revealed a 4 times increase comparing normal breast tissues; with a significant difference between cancer and normal samples (P = 0.027) and in patients without lymph node involvement and tissues that had estrogen receptor (ER(−)) and progesterone receptor (PR(−)) statuses. We see no significant difference between cancer and normal tissues based on lobular or ductal origin of the tumor as well as the tumor grade. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggested a probable relationship between GLIS3 overexpression and breast cancer. Furthermore, detection of a probable association between GLIS3 overexpression and triple-negative breast cancer (ER(−)/PR(−)/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2(−)) might be useful for prognostic and diagnostic uses or as a probable target for treatment of these patients.