الفهرس 
ContentsOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer in women worldwide. Many factors are involved in the pathogenesis and progression of BC, including biological, genetic, environmental, as well as lifestyle factors. Breast cancer is often initiated by abnormal cellular mechanisms and damage to DNA, brought about by different types of cellular stress. One method of minimizing damage caused by stress is a process that occurs within the cell known as autophagy.The aim of this study was to elucidate the role of autophagy in BC pathogenesis, by investigating the gene expression levels of autophagy-related markers including (Beclin-1, LC3B and p62/sequestosome1) in different grades and stages of BC, and to evaluate their prognostic significance in BC. 40 female patients with age ranging from 28 to 65 years, who were diagnosed with BC, were included in the study. Tissue samples from breast cancer tissue and matched adjacent normal tissue were collected from each patient during surgical resection. The selected women were grouped according to the Nottingham classification for histological grading into 2 groups:-group I: Grade 2 (moderately differentiated tumor) (n=30), and -group II: Grade 3 (poorly differentiated tumor) (n= 10). No cases were detected as grade1.In addition, 10 breast cancer patients were randomly selected, to serve as a control group by taking normal tissue samples, adjacent to tumor tissue, from them. Beclin-1, LC3B and p62/sequestosome1 gene expression was detected by total RNA extraction and real-time quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), and the correlation between autophagy levels and patient clinicopathological characteristics was analyzed.The results of this study revealed that Beclin-1 gene expression showed highly significant decrease, LC3 gene expression showed non significant decrease, while p62 gene expression showed significant increase in BC tissue specimens compared with the adjacent normal tissues. As regards different BC grades, and in comparison to adjacent non-cancerous tissue, significantly lower Beclin-1, as well as significantly higher p62 gene expression levels were detected in both grade II and grade III BC tissue. In addition, a significant positive correlation was existing between p62 gene expression and BC grades. However, LC3B showed significantly lower expression in grade II, while displayed non-significant decrease in grade III BC tissues. Conclusion:1- Autophagy plays a key role in the development and progression of BC.2-Decreased autophagic activity may be associated with a higher histologic grade and poorer prognosis in BC. 3-The role of autophagy in BC is context-dependent, and apparently dependent on the stage of tumor development.