Hadis Musavi , Abolfazl Fattah , Mojtaba Abbasi ,
Volume 13, Issue 3 (May-Jun 2019)
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Background and Objectives: Prostate cancer is a highly prevalent malignancy with a high mortality rate in men. Many studies have investigated the diagnostic value of various genes involved in prostate cancer, but there is no data for Kallikrein 2 (KLK2) and Kallikrein 3 (KLK3) expression patterns among Iranian patients. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the expression of these two genes in Iranian patients with prostate cancer.
Methods: In this case-control study, three groups consisting of healthy individuals, patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and patients with prostate cancer were studied. Peripheral blood samples were collected from all subjects, mRNA was extracted after cell lysis, and cDNA was synthesized. Real-time PCR was performed to assess gene expression levels relative to a reference gene (18s rRNA gene).
Results: The KLK2 gene was overexpressed in patients with prostate cancer. KLK2 expression differed significantly between the cancer patients and controls. Relative expression of the KLK3 gene in the BPH group was higher than that in the control and cancer groups. However, we observed no significant difference in the expression of KLK3 between the control and cancer subjects.
Conclusion: We demonstrate that analysis of KLK2 expression is a favorable method of diagnosing prostate cancer and discriminating normal individuals from those with BPH or prostate cancer. We also found that the KLK3 gene is highly overexpressed in individuals with BPH, which might indicate that this gene is not cancer-specific.
Keywords: Prostatic Neoplasm, Prostatic Hyperplasia, Kallikreins, Gene Expression.
Mojtaba Abbasi, Amirhooman Asadi, Hadis Musavi,
Volume 13, Issue 6 (Nov-Dec 2019)
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Reduced insulin secretion in Type II Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) results in fat accumulation in hepatocytes and increase in liver enzymes. The hepatocyte destruction due to non-alcoholic fatty liver is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, the aim of this study is to evaluate the association of liver transaminases with lipid profile in T2DM patients compared to healthy subjects.
Methods: A total of 1000 subjects (500 males and females with T2DM and 500 healthy subjects) participated in this case-control study. Diagnosis of T2DM was made based on the World Health Organization (WHO) criteria. Fasting blood samples (5 ml) were obtained from all subjects in the morning and the serum was extracted for the assessment of biochemical parameters was used to compare parameters between healthy and T2DM patients. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 20 and using Mann-Whitney test and Spearman correlation coefficient.
Results: The serum total cholesterol (TCH), triglyceride, Alanine Aminotransferase (ALT), Aspartate Transaminase (AST), TCH/high density lipoprotein (HDL-C) ratio and atherogenecity index plasma were significantly higher in T2DM group compared to healthy individuals (p≤0.006). Among the lipid profile parameters only Risk ratio (TCH/HDL-C) was positively correlated with ALT (p=0.037) while no significant correlation was observed for other variables (P>0.05)
Conclusion: T2DM Patients have higher lipid profile, atherogenecity index and liver enzymes compared to healthy individuals. Furthermore, TCH/HDL-C was significantly correlated with ALT.
