Evaluating the expression level of HERV-K env, np9, rec and gag in breast tissue

Breast cancer is one of the most common health problems. It has been suggested that several risk factors, either considered as external or internal, play a critical role in the pathogenesis of breast cancer, which among them, HERV-k, has the most fundamental role. In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the role of HERV-k expressions in breast cancer progression. We collected 40 breast cancer tissues and their normal adjacent ones. After extracting the RNA of breast samples, we evaluated the expression of HERV-k by using Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). The resulting data revealed that while there was a meaningful increase in the expression level of HERV-k in breast cancer tissues ( ≤ 0.01, 0.05, 0.05, respectively), we failed to find any significant elevation in the expression level of mRNA level. The results of our study suggested that there is a plausible correlation between the mRNA expression level of HERV-K and and the progression of breast cancer, proposing these markers as promising biomarkers to diagnose breast cancer.