Evaluation of p53 expression among colorectal cancer patients

Abstract EN

Background and purpose: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is counted as a third most common cancer among men and the second most common among women.

Besides that, among cancer-related mortality, the 3rd most common cause of death is due to the CRC worldwide.

A tumor suppressor gene p53 has the main role in regulating cell apoptosis, cell cycle arrest, and cell proliferation.

Thus, abnormality in p53 such as mutation or overexpression has a significant association with human cancer, in which alteration in this gene can be found in more than 50% of different cancer cases.

Therefore, our aim in this study is to evaluate the expression level of p53 gene focusing on its mRNA expression among colorectal cancer patients in Erbil, Kurdistan Region-Iraq.

Material and method: Forty-four pairs colorectal cancer tissues along with their corresponding non-cancerous tissues that were grouped based on the CRC types and patients‟ clinical features.

The expression of the p53 gene of the samples were evaluated by RT-PCR technique.

Result: results showed that expression of the p53 gene in colorectal cancer samples was significantly increased (overexpressed) compared to the expression of normal samples (control) (n=44, p=0, 0001).

Conclusion: It might be possible to consider the overexpression of the p53 gene as a molecular marker for colorectal cancer diagnosis in both men and women.

However, for better understanding and confirming our opening findings further analysis are required