Gene Expression Analysis of Colorectal Cancer Specific Marker CXCL1 Gene in Iraqi Patients

Background: Colorectal carcinoma is a third most common malignant tumor worldwide and the third largest cause of tumor-related death in Western countries. Chemokine ligand CXCL1 was shown to be involved in chemoattraction, inflammatory responses, tumor growth and angiogenesis. The main objective of current study was to analyze CXCL1 gene expression levels in colorectal carcinoma and to study the impacts of CXCL1 gene as genetic factors that contribute to development and prognosis of bladder cancer.

Method: The specimens were formalin-fixed, paraffin embedded tissue blocks. Forty samples (32 males and 8 females) with carcinoma were included in this study, their ages ranged from 30 to 80 years. Forty specimens of non-tumorous colonic tissues were considered as controls. Total ribonucleic acid (RNA) was extracted from tissues using (TRIzol® reagent kit, Bioneer, Korea). A total of 100ng/ul of RNA was reverse-transcribed using M-MLV Reverse Transcriptase kit (Bioneer, Korea) to synthesis complementary DNA (cDNA). Data were summarized, presented and analyzed using two software programs. These were Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and the statistical packages for social sciences (SPSS, version 18) using t-test, ANOVA and Chi-squared tests at a level of significant alpha<0.05.

Results: Analysis of data of CXCL1 gene expression revealed that the expression of this gene were found to be 12.389 folds in colorectal cancer in relation to normal colonic tissue. CXCL1 genes were observed to be expressed excessively in old age patients and advanced stage tumors.

Conclusions: CXCL1 may represent a novel colonic tumor marker with prognostic significance that could be introduced in plans of colorectal cancer management.