Abstract

Breast cancer is the most prevalent disease and second leading cause of death among women in many countries. Mutations and consequent DNA damage in several genes such as oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes have been implicated with abnormal behavior of somatic cells, resulting into malignant growth termed cancer. DNA damage/changes in chromosomal DNA and failure of DNA repair mechanism are important factors for cancer causation. Aberrant behavior of cells leading to uncontrolled proliferation causing cancer is attributable to amplicon formation, large deletions in some genes, mutations, and recombination breakpoints etc. which cause aberrant gene expression. Several patented genes found to be associated with breast cancer, have been discussed, such as BRCA1, BRCA2, DAP kinase, MYH, BCSGs, BCW 2 and Id-2 etc. Several of the genes/markers associated with breast cancer can be considered as appropriate candidates for developing early detection systems/protocols for breast cancer.

Keywords: Breast cancer, cell proliferation, mutations, altered gene expression, high risk, cancer diagnosis, genetic testing