Analysis of wwox gene expression and protein levels in pterygium

WWOX is a tumor suppressor that covering approximately 1.1 MB genomic region and the 16q23.3 → q24.1. This region includes FRA16D, the second most common fragile region in humans. The WWOX gene encodes a protein of 46 kDa consisting of a 2.2 kb long transcript and 414 amino acids.. The WWOX gene consists of two WW domains at the N-terminal and a short chain dehydrogenase domain at the C-terminal. WW domains mediate protein-protein interactions by binding to proline-containing ligands. WWOX is involved in many signal pathways such as; cell proliferation, embryonic development, metabolism and apoptosis. In many cancers, the loss of WWOX or the presence of abnormal transcripts indicates the tumor suppressor activity of WWOX. In this study, it was aimed to determine WWOX gene expression and protein level in pterygium which may be a tumor analog. For this purpose, the WWOX gene expression change in 27 pterygium tissue was investigated by real-time PCR method, and the change in WWOX protein was investigated using the Western Blot method. According to our results, it was found that the expression and protein levels of WWOX gene in pterygium tissue decreased significantly compared to control tissue (p ˂0.05). This informations indicate that a decrease in expression and protein level in pterygium tissue of WWOX, a tumor suppressor gene, supports claims that pterygium may be a cancer analogue tissue.