Association between Human Endogenous Retrovirus K gene expression and breast cancer

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers known, and it is also a significant cause of death in women. If breast cancer is diagnosed in the early stages of the disease and treated appropriately, we can see an increase in life expectancy for more than 90% of patients. Research on molecular biomarkers with enough sensitivity and specificity can be a good solution for rapid diagnosis in the clinical stage. Meanwhile, endogenous retroviral biomarkers can have good functional benefits. Human Endogenous Retroviruses as heterochromatin fragments of the genome usually lack expression, but in several types of human cancers, including breast cancer, HERV-Kenv mRNA is significantly increased. This study used RT-PCR to detect the expression of HERV-K mRNA and tried to introduce screening tools for the early detection of breast cancer. In this case-control study, blood samples of 50 patients with hospitalized breast cancer and 50 healthy individuals were designed to evaluate the expression of HERV-Kenv mRNA using specific primers and were analyzed by RT-PCR. PCR test was optimized as a positive control using Hela cancer cell line (cervical adenocarcinoma), which expresses the HERV-Kenv gene. Studies on both patient and control groups showed that the increase in mRNA expression was positive in 64% of patients with breast cancer and negative in all healthy individuals. The results indicate an increase in the expression of endogenous human retroviruses (HERVs) in breast cancer. Because the amount of HERV-Kenv mRNA in the blood of breast cancer patients increases dramatically, it is predicted that these mobile genetic elements could be used as a diagnostic biomarker.