Up-Regulation of Bax-Interacting Factor-1 InIranian Colorectal Cancer Patients

Background: colorectal cancer (crc) is one of the most common cancers worldwide and can be caused by a variety of genetic and acquired/environmental factors. bax-interacting factor-1 (bif-1) is an apoptosis inducer gene that interacts with the bcl2 protein family and triggers apoptosis via direct contact or by changing into the bax protein conformation using the phosphorylation mechanism. bif-1 also interacts with beclin-1, a protein that plays a central role in autophagy through mediation of uvrag (ultraviolet irradiation resistant-associated gene), a positive regulator of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase complex 3 (pi3kc3), thereby inducing autophagy in mammalian cells. considering the dual role of bif-1 in many tumors of different origins, in this study we assessed bif-1 gene expression to investigate its potential role as a possible prognostic biomarker in iranian colorectal cancer patients. methods: bif-1 gene expression in tumors and normal adjacent tissues in 50 colorectal cancer patients were quantified using real-time rt-pcr. also, the association between bif-1 gene expression levels with the histopathological characteristics of patients was assessed. results: the results indicated an overall upregulation of the bif-1 gene in colorectal tumors compared with normal adjacent tissues (p < 0.0001). also, bif-1expression was significantly elevated in stages ii and iii compared with stage i, and down-regulated in stage iv patients with distant metastasis. a positive association was also observed between lymph node involvement and tumor size ≥ 5 centimeters with bif- 1 overexpression (p < 0.001). conclusion: in conclusion, up-regulation of the bif-1 gene could be considered as a possible prognostic candidate in colorectal cancers associated with nodal metastasis and greater tumor size. further validation of these results are recommended in studies with larger sample sizes.