Identificação de polimorfismos de nucleotídeo único com efeitos deletérios em transcriptomas de câncer gástrico

Abstract

Gastric cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer mortality in the world. Its development is associated with factors related to lifestyle and genetic alterations that can modify genes and important biosynthetic and metabolic pathways that help maintaining cellular and tissue integrity. One of the main cancer research objectives is identify genes and mutations that may be used as genetic markers and potential therapeutic targets. Studies with genes related to the pathway of steroid hormones proteins have already identified polymorphisms that may be related to the risk of cancer. Because it is an important route for physiological and pathological processes identification of genetic polymorphisms in this and cholesterol biosynthesis pathway may contribute to the understanding of gastric carcinogenesis. Therefore, we performed a comprehensive bioinformatics analysis of transcriptome datasets from gastric tissues with and without cancer, in order to identify SNPs in genes associated to enzymes of biosynthetic pathways of steroid hormones, cholesterol and progesterone receptor that may be related to gastric cancer. The analysis was performed using the Galaxy Platform, the Bowtie alignment tool and the Provean software for functional analysis of variations. Deleterious mutations have been identified in CYP51A1, DHCR24 and SQLE genes in the steroid hormone biosynthesis pathway, and in CYP3A5, HSD17B12, UGT1A1, UGT1A5, UGT1A6 and AKR1C3 genes in the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway. The CYP3A5 gene had the highest number of deleterious SNPs. These results indicate a possible participation of genes analyzed in the molecular mechanisms involved in the development of gastric cancer.