Determination of mitochondrial dna common deletion prevalence in benign and malign thyroid nodules in the Turkish population

In literature is mentioned that mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations/ variations play a role in many multifactorial diseases and aging processes. According to these studies, the common deletion in mtDNA, which is 4977 bp long, play a role in thyroid, colorectal, liver, breast cancer and aging. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) common deletion in functional and non-functional thyroid nodules and papillary thyroid carcinomas in Turkish population and to determine the presence of (mtDNA) common deletion can be used in the differential diagnosis of papillary thyroid cancers (PTC) whether or not. A total of 285 nodular and surrounding tissues of 105 benign and 6 PTC patients were included in the study. Nested PCR methodology were performed to analyze the mitochondrial genome region between 8470.-8484 and 13459.- 13447. nucleotides for detection of the mtDNA common deletion. The DNA samples were obtained by using phenol-chloroform methodology in previous studies. Common deletion was detected in 151 (66.23%) of the hot and cold nodule tissues taken from a total of 104 patients. Common deletion was detected in 10 (90.9%) of 11 tumor tissues of 6 patients diagnosed with PTC. When the distribution of Common deletion was examined between cold nodules and hot nodules, Common deletion was found in 80 (74.8%) of 107 hot nodules and 69 (86.3%) of 80 cold nodules (p 0.053). As a result, although, the prevalence of Common deletions was found to be higher in cold nodules, which has a high cancer potential than the hot nodules, it is not statistically significant. However, since the prevalence of Common deletions in cold thyroid nodules is similar to PTC tumor tissues, it is predicted that it has no potential to be used in the differential diagnosis of PTCs.