Assessment of Her2 Gene Variant Expression Status in Breast Cancer

Background and aim: breast cancer is one of the most common types of cancers in the world. the exact pathway leading to this cancer has not been determined clearly, but we know that hereditary factors play important roles in this cancer. breast cancer is divided into several groups based on molecular aspects which one of them is her2 positive (her2+) breast cancer. her2 + is usually associated with a poor prognosis with lymph node involvement and malignant breast cancer. in this study, we aimed to determining the expression of one of the variants of the her2 gene in 17q12 region in her2+/ her2- breast cancer patients.methods: in this study, 60 tissue samples of her2+/ her2- breast cancer were collected. rna was isolated using trizol solution from tumor tissue and cdna was synthesized. then, real-time rt-pcr reaction was accomplished to evaluate the expression of this variant in her2+/ her2- breast cancer samples. 2-∆ct method was used for real-time rt-pcr data analysis and gene expression determination. graphpad prism 6 was also utilized for statistical data analysis. p < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant for all experiments.results: the expression level of the intended variant (locus 17q12) of the her2 gene was significantly higher in the her2+ breast cancer patients (p = 0.04).conclusion: since the her2 gene is an important gene in breast cancer and its overexpression is associated with malignancy and progression of breast cancer, investigating the expression of this gene and its variants can be effective in early detection of breast cancer.