Expressional deregulations of RET/PTC genes and different nutritional factors playing crucial role in the development of thyroid cancer in Pakistani female subjects

BACKGROUND: The most common endocrine malignancy occurring in the human population is thyroid cancer (TC), and its subtype papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) constitutes about 80%-90% of all thyroid cancers. It is implicated that certain dietary habits are playing important role in carcinogenesis. It is also suggested through genetic studies that the key step in the pathogenesis of thyroid cancer is the Rearrangements during transfection (RET). AIMS: This study was planned to analyze the role of both dietary habits and RET/PTC aberrations in the Pakistani population. METHODOLOGY: Data about clinical, demographic hallmarks, and nutritional factors were collected through a questionnaire. Thyroid cancer tissue samples were collected along with adjacent normal samples. RNA was extracted through the TRIzol method, and cDNA was synthesized. The samples were checked for their expression deregulations of RET/PTC1 and RET/PTC3 through quantitative Real-Time PCR compared to normal controls. Data were analyzed statistically using SPSS. RESULTS: Stage 1 &2 thyroid cancer patients were frequent. Increased risk of thyroid cancer was observed to be associated with meat consumption and dairy products. Increased expression of RET/PTC1 and RET/PTC3 at significant levels (p -value p < 0.05) was observed in thyroid cancer tissue as compared to normal and MNG specimens. Mean fold-change values exceeded 4-fold for RET/PTC1 and 6-fold for RET/PTC3, and both genes showed statistically significant overexpression (RET/PTC1: p < 0.0001; RET/PTC3: p = 0.0001). CONCLUSION: The present study postulates that some of the major nutritional factors can be significantly associated with thyroid carcinogenesis. While the RET/PTC rearrangements are the prime concern in thyroid cancer in the Pakistani population. The higher expression of RET/PTC1 and RET/PTC3 identified in thyroid cancer patients presents the potential target to be down regulated customized molecular therapies.