Expression study of CYP19A1 gene in a cohort of Iranian leiomyoma patients

Abstract

Background: CYP19A1 gene encodes aromatase, a microsomal key  enzyme that catalyzes the synthesis of estrogens from androgens. Accumulating evidence has revealed that aromatase plays an important role in the pathogenesis of leiomyoma through increasing local  concentration of estrogens. In this study, we examined the levels of CYP19A1 mRNA to determine the impact of aromatase overexpression in uterine leiomyoma growth.
Subjects and methods: Tissues were obtained via myomectomy or  hysterectomy from 30 patients. Total RNA was extracted and cDNA was synthesized from each frozen sample. Using SYBR Green dye, Realtime
PCR assay was performed by sequence-specific primers. Relative mRNA  expression was normalized to the mean of the Ct values determined for HPRT1. Gene expression ratio in each sample was determined relative to the mean DCt value of tumor-free margin samples.
Results: PCR efficiencies for amplification reactions of HPRT1, and CYP19A genes were calculated as 0.93 and 0.96, respectively. Regression  coefficients (R) for standard curves were above 0.90. The obtained data
revealed that the mean fold increase of CYP19A1 gene expression in leiomyoma samples relative to normal samples was 3.551 (95% CI: 0.04–6.64, S.E., 0.29–5.35).
Conclusions: Our results were in accordance with previous studies and imply that up-regulation of CYP19A1 is correlated with the pathogenesis of leiomyoma tumors. We also observed that expression level of CYP19A1 was not linked to the tumor size or localization. It can be concluded that; upregulation of aromatase is a key factor in the initiation of tumor  development as well as tumor growth.

Keywords: Leiomyoma CYP19A1 Real-time PCR Gene expression study