Oncogenic Role of KLF8 Variants in Breast Cancer

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among females. In Pakistan, late diagnosis of this disease leads to a higher death rate. This type of cancer involves uncontrolled division of epithelial cells surrounding ducts and lobules of breast. This uncontrolled division is mediated by transcription factors. One of the family of transcription factors is the Kruppel like factors family. These are the zinc-finger proteins that function in cell cycle progression. However, these are also involved in various malignancies where they directly affect cell cycle regulation, apoptosis, metastasis and signaling pathways. Therefore, there is a need to study these proteins. One of the members of this family of proteins is KLF8. This factor is found to be associated with different types of cancers and other disorders. There is not enough evidence of single nucleotide polymorphism in KLF8. This study is aimed at studying the association between SNPs of KLF8 and breast cancer. The SNPs in KLF8 affect the structure and function of the KLF8 protein. In-silico analysis of the SNP rs868781835 revealed that its affect might probably be damaging, while SNP rs1196572444 was found to be damaging. This SNP was rendered to genotype analysis where the genotype GT was associated with metastasis of breast cancer.