Molecular Biomarkers: Biotechnology Exploring Modern Tools to Manage Breast Cancer

When it comes to breast cancer, every woman is at risk making this disease to afflict millions of individuals worldwide every year with significant mortality. Many pieces of research and efforts have been put forth in order to circumvent this problem. Moreover, since this disease is also related to lifestyle activities, early intervention of the disease has shown encouraging outcomes.

Ann Jillian has rightly said “There can be life after breast cancer. The prerequisite is early detection.”

What we need today is to define and design foolproof parameters for early detection of the disease along with grading and staging. Towards this direction, it has been seen in many studies that in many cancers, there is an abnormal production of some molecules which can be easily measured in the plasma, aka tumor markers.

Human Chromosome 17 harbors crucial genes importantly found mutated in breast cancer. BRCA1, TP53, and ERBB2 are located in this chromosome. BRCA1, TP53, and gene germline mutations have been largely confined to northern parts of India (Hedau, 2004). Moreover, HER2 transcripts and over expression have been detected previously in a majority of breast tumors. In BRCA1 gene, mutations have been reported in exon 11 (Friedman et al, 1994) while in p53 gene, 13% of mutations were recorded between exons 5 and 8 in all cancers surveyed previously (Caligo et al, 1992).

Dr. Sharma and his research team at MM(DU) Mullana in the Department of Biotechnology identified three Biomarker genes i.e. BRCA1, ERBB2(HER2/neu) and TP53 which were showing significantly high levels of mRNA expression in tumor tissues of North Indian breast cancer patients in comparison to the healthy controls. The levels of mRNA expression for the above markers in malignant tissue samples were significantly higher in comparison to benign and normal controls.

However, these markers were reported to be more tissue-specific (indicated by the significant levels of mRNA expression in tissue samples) while there were no abnormal levels of production of the above tumor markers in blood samples. Also, mutation(s) in the hot-spot regions of the above marker genes (exon 5 in TP53, exon 11 in BRCA1, exon 16 in ERBB2) were found to be associated with increased incidence of breast cancer. For the gene expression of BRCA1, ERBB2, and TP53 genes, RT-qPCR was performed with cDNA, SYBR green, and with gene-specific primers synthesized at Applied Biosystems Ltd. (Chandigarh, India). Hot spot regions (exon 11 of BRCA1; exon 5 of TP53; exon 16 of ERBB2) being more prone to mutations/changes in both the populations. The mutations found may further be beneficial for deciding on the status of disease and strategizing the therapeutic interventions in breast cancer.

The data holds significant importance as these markers provide a therapeutic window for diagnosis in breast cancer. Therefore, the Department of Biotechnology at MM(DU) has developed significant tools in terms of diagnostic markers having significant prognostic relevance in women having breast cancer. Besides, these findings have paved a way to design a therapeutic strategy towards personalized individual specific medicines.

Since breast cancer is also related to lifestyle to some extent, what we recommend is to have daily physical activity along with sufficient intake of fruits, vegetables, beans, meat, etc. to have the optimal levels of antioxidants to counter this deadly chronic disease. Apart from that one needs to avoid exposure to carcinogens at work-place.

Needless to say that modern biotechnology has set significantly high standards to cure ailing individuals bringing newer paradigms to manage breast cancer and overall health of an individual.

Today this multidisciplinary branch of Science and Engineering has ample amount of career opportunities available in the areas of vaccine technology, diagnosis, natural products therapeutics against a variety of diseases including cancer. The Department provides a strong career platform for students to adopt Biotechnology as a potential career option through professional courses such as B.Tech Biotechnology, B.Sc. Biotechnology and M.Sc. in Biotechnology, Microbiology and Botanical disciplines.