Evaluation of APE1 Gene Methylation in Iraqi Patients Suffering From Breast Cancer

The name of an important enzyme that plays a central role in the excision repair of DNA bases is apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1 (APE1). It cuts the DNA strand and creates a gap that helps other enzymes in the base excision repair (BER) pathway to find the missing part. APE1 is important for the regulation of many cellular decisions, such as apoptosis, cell proliferation, differentiation, and a multitude of other cellular activities. For the purpose of this research, how the APE1 gene is methylated in breast cancer, we studied fifty normal subjects from Iraq and fifty subjects who were clinically diagnosed with breast cancer. Agarose gel electrophoresis was performed to detect the quality and purity of the extracted DNA, followed by the amplification of target APE1 segments by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The One Step Methyl™ Kit was used to detect DNA methylation in a region by amplifying the methylated cytosines flanking the CpG dinucleotide on both sides. After completing the RT-PCR amplification program, the gene was analyzed for the methylation of the APE1 gene. As indicated in the current study, breast cancer patients exhibited lower APE1 gene methylation and lower APE1 proliferation score than the control subjects, indicating that lower APE1 gene methylation is a strong indicator of the likelihood of having the disease.