Upregulation of RHOXF2 and ODF4 Expression in Breast Cancer Tissues

Objective: during the past decade, the importance of biomarker discovery has been highlightedin many aspects of cancer research. biomarkers may have a role in early detectionof cancer, prognosis and survival evaluation as well as drug response. cancer-testisantigens (ctas) have gained attention as cancer biomarkers because of their expressionin a wide variety of tumors and restricted expression in testis. the aim of this study wasto find putative biomarkers for breast cancer.materials and methods: in this applied-descriptive study, the expression of 4 ctas,namely acrosin binding protein (acrbp), outer dense fiber 4 (odf4), rhox homeoboxfamily member 2 (rhoxf2) and spermatogenesis associated 19 (spata19) were analyzedat the transcript level in two breast cancer lines (mcf-7 and mda-mb-231), 40invasive ductal carcinoma samples and their adjacent normal tissues as well as 10 fibroadenomasamples by means of quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerasechain reaction (rt-pcr).results: all four genes were expressed in both cell lines. expression of odf4 and rhoxf2was detected in 62.5% and 60% of breast cancer tissues but in 22.5 and 17.5% ofnormal tissues examined respectively. the expression of both rhoxf2 and odf4 wasupregulated in cancerous tissues compared with their normal adjacent tissues by 3.31-and 2.96-fold respectively. the expression of both genes was correlated with her2/neuoverexpression. rhoxf2 expression but not odf4 was correlated with higher stages oftumors. however, no significant association was seen between expression patterns andestrogen and progesterone receptors status.conclusion: odf4 and rhoxf2 are proposed as putative breast cancer biomarkersat the transcript level. however, their expression at protein level should be evaluatedin future studies.