Epitel kanserlerde hedgehog yolağı genlerinin gen ifade profili

The Hedgehog (Hh) pathway has been investigated in many cancer types and shown tohave important effects, but not effectively studied in breast, colon and liver cancers. Inthis study, gene expression profile of Hh pathway was analyzed in breast, colon, andhepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell lines and primary breast tumor samples byquantitative real-time RT-PCR. Breast cell lines have different levels of target geneexpression in the Hh pathway, such that this pathway is activated only in some of the celllines possibly through a ligand-independent pathway. In the breast cancer cell lines,PTCH1, SMO, GLI3 and BCl2 had high expression. Expression profiles predictedestrogen receptor status correctly in 93% of the cell lines. Hh pathway gene expressionprofile differentiates poorly differentiated HCC cell lines from well differentiated ones inDiscriminant Function Analysis (DFA) perfectly. High SMO and IHH expressions havebeen found to be markers for aberrant Hh pathway activity in the well differentiated HCCcell lines. In colon cancer cell lines deregulated expression profile among the genes wereobserved. In primary breast tumor samples, there was a very strong prediction for ERstatus of the samples. This is the first comprehensive study that shows the geneexpression profiles of the main target genes of the Hh pathway in cancer cell lines andbreast cancer tissue samples.