Clinical Manifestations and Gene Expression in Patients with Conventional Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma Carrying the BRAFV600E Mutation and BRAF Pseudogene.

Clinical Manifestations and Gene Expression in Patients with Conventional Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma Carrying the BRAFV600E Mutation and BRAF Pseudogene.

Thyroid. 2016 Feb 25;

Authors: Lin JD, Fu SS, Chen JY, Lee CH, Chau WK, Cheng CW, Wang YH, Lin YF, Fang WF, Tang KT

Abstract
BACKGROUND: The association of BRAFV600E with the clinical manifestations of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) remains controversial. Recent studies have shown that the BRAF pseudogene can activate the MAPK pathway and induce tumorigenesis. In this study, we investigated the association of BRAFV600E, the BRAF pseudogene, and their mRNA levels with clinical features and thyroid-specific gene expression in conventional PTCs.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 78 specimens were collected from patients with conventional PTCs. RNA was isolated, and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed to measure the mRNA levels of BRAF, the BRAF pseudogene, and thyroid-specific and tumor-related genes. Immunohistochemical (IHC) staining of BRAF, ERK, sodium-iodide symporter (NIS), thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor (TSHR), glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1), and Ki67 was also performed.
RESULTS: BRAFV600E and the BRAF pseudogene were detected in 73.0% (57/78) and 91.7% (44/48), respectively, of the conventional PTCs. The presence of BRAFV600E was not associated with the multiple clinical features assessed or the recurrence rate during 76.9  47.2 months of follow-up. Neither was it associated with IHC staining or tumor-related/thyroid-specific gene expression, except for decreased NIS gene expression. The BRAF pseudogene was not associated with clinical characteristics or thyroid-specific gene expression, except for decreased decoy receptor 3 (DCR3) expression. High BRAF mRNA levels were associated with bilateral and multifocal lesions, and BRAF-pseudogene mRNA levels were positively correlated with BRAF mRNA levels (r = 0.415, p = 0.009).
CONCLUSION: Our results do not support the use of the BRAFV600E mutation as a prognostic marker of conventional PTC. However, the association of high BRAF mRNA levels with more advanced clinical features suggests that BRAF mRNA levels might be a more useful clinical marker of PTCs, independent of the BRAFV600E mutation status. The correlation between BRAF-pseudogene mRNA levels and BRAF mRNA levels in PTCs is in agreement with the hypothesis that the BRAF pseudogene regulates BRAF expression during tumorigenesis by acting as competitive noncoding RNA. However, additional studies with larger sample sizes are required to confirm these findings.

PMID: 26914762 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

from #ENT-PubMed via ola Kala on Inoreader http://ift.tt/1QKmkLa
via IFTTT