Upregulation of the double-stranded RNA binding protein DGCR8 in invasive ductal breast carcinoma

• DGCR8 is a cofactor for Drosha in microRNA maturing microprocessor complex.
• Dysregulation of DGCR8 expression has been reported is in several malignancies.
• We evaluated DGCR8 mRNA expression levels in IDC specimens.
• DGCR8 overexpressed in cancerous tissues compared to tumor-adjacent normal ones.

High-throughput experimental studies have indicated that the miRNAome is globally downregulated in various types of malignancy, and dysregulation of miRNAs processing component(s) is one possible mechanism for this phenomenon. Despite the progression in identifying cellular functions of Digeorge Syndrome Critical Region 8 (DGCR8) in miRNAs biogenesis, the role of altered expression of DGCR8 in the pathogenesis of invasive ductal breast carcinoma (IDC) has not yet been fully investigated. The objective of the present study was to evaluate DGCR8 mRNA expression in seventy fresh invasive ductal breast carcinomas and matched adjacent non-neoplastic tissues using quantitative real-time PCR and to assess the value of clinicopathological parameters on its expression. Our findings revealed that DGCR8 mRNA expression is upregulated in more than two-thirds of the cancerous specimens (68.66%) when compared to adjacent non-neoplastic tissue. This difference is statistically significant (P < 0.05). We found that DGCR8 mRNA levels were increased in the high-grade and metastatic compared with those of both low-grade and non-metastatic. We demonstrated that there is not significant correlation between DGCR8 mRNA expression levels and clinicopathological parameters. In conclusion, our study suggested that upregulation of DGCR8 may be involved in tumorigenesis and aggressiveness of IDC and may serve as future therapeutic target.