Detection of Copy Number Alteration of MTA1 in Human Breast Cancer

Abstract

OBJECTIVE The purpose of our study was to investigate the expression level of MTA1 mRNA in breast cancer and its significance in relation to clinical pathology.METHODS The expression levels of MTA1 mRNA in tumor and in paired normal adjacent tissue of 56 cases with breast cancer were detected by fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction.RESULTS The expression of MTA1 mRNA was detected in 47 tumor specimens of 56 breast cancer patients (83.9%) and was significantly higher than in the paired normal breast tissue. The over expressed MTA1 mRNA was significantly associated with pathologic stage (P = 0.029), clinical grade (P = 0.035) and lymph node status ( P = 0.001). CONCLUSION The over expression of MTA1 mRNA may play a crucial role in the development of breast cancer. As the MTA1 was comparatively highly-expressed in breast cancer, it may become a new biomarker for the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer in the future.

Keywords

• breast cancer
• gene expression
• metastasis-associated gene 1
• fl uorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction.