POLQ is a member of a cluster of similarly upregulated genes that are strongly correlated with poor clinical outcome for breast cancer, ovarian cancer and other cancer types.
We analyzed through case-control study nine SNPs of POLQ in hereditary (HBC) and sporadic (SBC) breast cancer patients using Taqman Real Time PCR assays.
We therefore correlated the clinical outcomes of two retrospective series of patients with early breast cancer with the expression levels of POLQ, as determined by microarray gene expression analysis.
In conclusion, this screen of DNA repair genes implicates PRKDC and POLQ as candidate tumor suppressor genes involved in breast cancer and suggests that inactivating mutations in RAD50 predispose to pancreatic cancer as well as breast cancer.