The specific causes of breast cancer are still mysterious, nevertheless; genetic and environmental factors found to play a crucial role in the development of this cancer. Several alleles of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) are associated with susceptibility or resistance to breast cancer, Moreover; cytokines play an important role in the pathogenesis of breast cancer. Current study aimed to shed light on the possible association of HLA class I and II alleles with breast cancer, and to investigate the alterations in serum levels of IL-2 and IL-4 in patients and its relation with progression of breast cancer. The study included 60 subjects: 30 breast cancer patients, 12 patients with benign breast lesions as control patients, and 18 apparently healthy subjects as healthy control. Polymerase chain reaction-specific sequence primers (PCR- SSP) assay was conducted to assess HLA- typing. Whereas serum levels of IL-2 and IL-4 were estimated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The present study showed a high frequency of HLA-A* 03010101-07, 09-11N, 13-16 alleles in breast cancer patients as compared with healthy and control patients with P= 0.041, P=0.04 respectively. On the other hand the frequency of DR*010101, 0102, 0201-0204, 04-13 and DQB1*0401, 02 alleles showed significant low frequency in patients when compared with healthy control (P=0.047 for both alleles). Another interesting finding in this study was the significant elevation of IL-4 level in the sera of breast cancer patients as compared to control groups (p < 0.001), this elevation was correlated with progression of the tumor, while there was a significant decrease in the serum level of IL-2 in patients as compared with control groups (p > 0.05), this reduction was not correlated with progression of the tumor. In addition, current result revealed to no significant association between specific HLA-alleles and serum IL-2 and IL-4 levels. The results indicate that certain HLA- A and HLA-DR alleles play a role in the etiology of breast cancer. Further studies with more number of patients are required to confirm and expand our findings.
Key words: Breast cancer, HLA allele, PCR, Cytokines
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