Analysis of androgen receptor ex pression and gene amplification in molecular subtypes of breast carcinoma in Omani women with clinico-pathological correlation.

Breast cancer is one of the most frequent malignancies amongst women across the world, as well as in Oman. It has been divided into distinct molecular subtypes by gene expression microarrays and immunohistochemistry. The role of estrogen and its receptor is well established in the carcinogenesis and tumor progression, however little is known about the mechanism of androgen receptor effect in breast carcinogenesis although it is expressed in 60% 70% of breast tumors. Androgen receptor (AR) is known to be involved in regulation of cell proliferation. Androgen receptor amplification has been shown in prostate cancer and has been implicated as a mechanism of failure of androgen deprivation therapy in this type of tumour. AR amplification has not been tested in breast carcinoma patients and therefore it would be interesting to test for this molecular mechanism and correlate the results with various molecular subtypes. Many of the cell cycle regulating proteins had been shown to be regulated through the androgen receptor pathway as P21, cyclin D1 and BCL2 and correlation of the expression of AR with the expression of such proteins may help in identifying the mechanism of AR role in breast carcinogenesis. The aim of this project is to investigate the association between AR expression and gene amplification in various molecular subtypes of breast carcinoma as well as with clinicopathological parameters.