Background: Pakistan has a high incidence of breast cancer in Asia,
where annually 16,232 deaths are reported. There are many exogenous and
endogenous risk factors that affect the tumor suppressor genes and
oncogenes. The p53 gene is a tumor suppressor gene and it has a role to
protect the whole genome from external and internal stresses, which
causes damages to the genome. Objective: The aim of the current study
was to investigate the p53 gene expression by using the real-time PCR
technique in different grades of breast cancer as compared to the
normal tissue. Methods: Fresh Modified Radical Mastectomy (MRM) samples
(grade1-grade3) were collected from different hospitals of the Lahore.
The project was approved by an ethical review committee of Jinnah
Hospital, Lahore. And before sampling an informed consent was obtained
from patients and clinicians. RNA from fresh biopsies was extracted by
Qiagen extraction kit and cDNA was formed. Real time PCR performed by
using SYBR green master mix (ABI) and the data was evaluated by using
Livak method. Statistical analysis was done by using Microsoft Excel.
Results: There was an abnormal gene expression of p53 in all grades of
the breast tumors. Non-significant (p>0.05) difference of down and
up regulation of p53 in different grades of breast tumor was found.
However, as a whole up-regulation was more than down-regulation with
significant difference (p<0.0011). Conclusion: The abnormal
expression of p53 shows that there are some genetic and epigenetic
factors which are the primal cause of an abnormal gene expression. It
is recommended that perform next generation sequencing (NGS) of the
gene to find out the mutations causing the abnormal behavior of p53
gene