Comparison of the Expression Level of TLR2, TLR4, NLRP3 and NOS2 Genes in Peripheral Blood Monocytes of Colorectal Cancer Patients and Healthy Controls

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer diagnosed and the second leading cause of cancer related death for both men and women in the United States of America (US) and also, is the third and fourth common cancer in Iranian men and women, respectively. It is curable in its early stages; we hypothesized” the inflammatory gene expression level of the peripheral monocytes of CRC patients is different from control healthy persons”. Therefore, this research was done with the aim of finding of the role of inflammation in the formation of CRC to help diagnosis and treatment of CRC in its early stages on the basis of its immunopathological view.

Inthis case-control study, the expression level of TLR2, TLR4, NLRP3 and NOS2 genes was compared following RNA extraction and cDNA synthesis from isolated monocytes of stage II CRC patients (confirmed by TNM method and before any chemotherapyand radiotherapy n=12) versus non-CRC healthy/controls (referred for CRC screening n=12) by qPCR method. The β- actin gene was used as the reference gene in this research.

In CRC patients’ monocytes, the expression levels of TLR2 and TLR4 genes were significantly less than those of healthy controls (p < 0.05). The NLRP3 gene expression level in CRC group was slightly higher but, not significant. In contrast, the expression level of NOS2 gene in CRC group was significantly higher than that of in healthy controls (p < 0.05).

On the basis of the variations of the gene expression levels of TLR2, TLR4 and NOS2 in monocytes of stage II CRC patients and the role of inflammation in its formation, it is possible using this variations as CRC prognosis and in time treatment along with other methods; though, it needs more investigations.