Clinicopathological Significance of hTERT gene expression in Breast Cancer Patients

Aim: This study aimed to examine the clinical significance of the mRNA expression of the human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) gene in breast cancer (BCa) and to investigate its clinicopathological role. The hTERT gene is involved in events such as cell proliferation, apoptosis and cell invasion. It has been reported that high hTERT mRNA expression is associated with poor prognosis in solid tumors such as BCa, stomach, lung, glioblastoma, head and neck. Material and Methods: RNA isolations of 59 BCa and healthy blood samples were performed. hTERT gene mRNA expression was analyzed by Real-Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) method. mRNA expression results were evaluated in cancer and healthy samples by the 2-∆∆ct method. Clinical data were collected and the relationship of these data with hTERT gene expression was evaluated statistically. Results: hTERT gene mRNA expression in BCa patients was significantly higher than in healty samples (p=0,0211). Low hTERT gene expression was significantly associated with estrogen receptor (ER) (+) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER 2) (+) patients (p=0.0464; p=0.0080, respectively). hTERT gene expression was found to be higher in histological grade 3 patients compared to grade 2 (p=0.0389). Moreover, hTERT expression was shown to be significantly higher in basal-like histological type compared to luminal A and luminal B (p=0.0160; p=0.0008, respectively). Conclusion: The findings of our study showed that hTERT gene expression was significantly higher in BCa patients than in healthy samples. Abnormal hTERT gene expression may play an important role in carcinogenesis or diagnosis.