Publications by authors named "Taruna Rajagopal"

Article Synopsis
  • * SNPs are prevalent in the population and have a significant role in sporadic ovarian cancers, emphasizing the importance of understanding their genetic basis for improving molecular diagnostics and developing personalized treatments.
  • * This review focuses on the impact of SNPs in critical caretaker genes responsible for genomic integrity and discusses the challenges of SNP-based research, highlighting the most studied pathways (DDR and HRR) while noting that other relevant pathways are underexplored.
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Background: Homologous recombination repair (HRR) accurately repairs the DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) and is crucial for genome stability. Genetic polymorphisms in crucial HRR pathway genes might affect genome stability and promote tumorigenesis. Up to our knowledge, the present study is the first to investigate the impact of HRR gene polymorphisms on BC development in South Indian women.

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Background: The frequency of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) incidence varies among different populations suggesting the involvement of genetic components towards TNBC development. Previous studies have reported that BRCA1/2 germline mutations confer a lifetime risk of developing TNBC. However, there is hardly any information regarding the common pathogenic variants (PVs) in BRCA1/2 genes that contribute to TNBC in the Indian population.

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Background: Functional variants of the xenobiotic-metabolizing genes (XMG) might modulate breast cancer (BC) risk by altering the rate of metabolism and clearance of myriad types of potent carcinogens from the breast tissue. Despite mounting evidence on the role of XMG variants on BC risk, the current knowledge regarding their influence on BC development is still fragmentary.

Methods: The present study examined the candidate genetic variants in CYP1A1, NQO1, GST-T1, GST-M1, and GST-P1 in 1002 subjects (502 BC patients and 500 disease-free women).

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Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a heterogeneous breast cancer subtype that lacks targeted therapy due to the absence of estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 receptors. Moreover, TNBC was shown to have a poor prognosis, since it involves aggressive phenotypes that confer significant hindrance to therapeutic treatments. Recent state-of-the-art sequencing technologies have shed light on several long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), previously thought to have no biological function and were considered as genomic junk.

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Background: Until now, no study has reported the combined effect of genetic variants of HOTAIR and NME1 towards breast cancer (BC) pathogenesis. Hence, the aim of the present study is to determine the risk of breast cancer development with HOTAIR (rs920778 C > T and rs1899663 G > T) and NME1 (rs16949649 T > C and rs2302254 C > T) genetic polymorphisms in the Indian population for the first time.

Materials And Methods: To investigate the genetic association of these four SNPs, we conducted a population-based case-control study involving 1011 subjects (502 histologically confirmed BC patients and 509 disease-free controls) using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method.

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Identification of modifier genes predisposing to breast cancer (BC) phenotype remains a significant challenge and varies with ethnicity. The genetic variability observed in DNA repair genes may modulate the cell's ability to repair the damaged DNA and hence, evaluation of genetic variants in crucial DNA damage repair genes is of clinical importance. We performed the present study to evaluate the role of ERCC2-Lys751Gln, hOGG1-Ser326Cys, and XRCC1-Arg399Gln gene polymorphisms on the risk of BC development and its molecular profile in Indian women.

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Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are an important novel class of non-coding RNAs having lengths of 200 nucleotides and low expression. The HOX Transcript Antisense Intergenic RNA (HOTAIR) is one of the most extensively studied lncRNAs found dysregulated in human cancer. Although a growing body of evidence suggests a role fo HOTAIR in pathogenesis, disease progression, drug resistance and reduced survival, its mechanism of action remains largely unclear.

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