The Expression of C-erb B2, Neu Oncogene in the Breast Tissues of a Group of Saudi Female Patients

Breast cancer is the most common cause of death amongwomen. The exact etiological mechanism still remains unclear.However, breast cancer varies with age and nationality. For example,in Saudi Arabia according to the annual report of tumor registry of1991 breast cancer is 8.2-12% of the total distribution of commonmalignancy. In United States, according to the American cancersociety, one in nine women will get breast cancer before the age ofeighty-five. In the United Kingdom it has the highest mortality of anymalignant disease. In the current work the expression of C-erb B2oncogene has been investigated in breast tissues of some Saudi femalepatients. Clinical investigation on the patients has shown that therewas a high risk of breast cancer in relation to heredity and geneticconstituents as well as age of first birth, obesity, early menarche, drugmedication and hormone replacement therapy. No significant differencewas observed in DNA content of non-malignant and malignanttissues. The employment of southern blotting technique have demonstratedthat tumour DNA exhibits two EcoR I fragments of approximately6.6 Kb and 6.0 Kb and with Hind III fragments of 4.72 Kb(Lane 3, Fig. 1), an EcoR I fragments of 3.2 Kb and Hind III fragmentsof 3.3 Kb and 2.20 Kb. In non-malignant cell C-erb B2 hybridizedwith EcoR I fragments at 20.29 Kb and 2 Hind III at 6.0 Kb and4.4 Kb and at 2.20 Kb. Clinical investigated parameters for Saudiwomen were in agreement with what has been reviewed in the literaturein which the integration and the expression of C-erb B2 oncogenewas the cause of malignancy in most of the cases investigatedeither in phenotypically, non-malignant or malignant tissues. Thedevelopment of mammary tumour in all cases investigated may reflectthe overproduction of the estrogen receptor in the investigated tissues