RESEARCH ARTICLE A Molecular Analysis Provides Novel Insights into Androgen Receptor Signalling in Breast Cancer

Background Androgen Receptor (AR) is an essential transcription factor for the development of second-ary sex characteristics, spermatogenesis and carcinogenesis. Recently AR has been impli-cated in the development and progression of breast and prostate cancers. Although some of the functions of the AR are known but the mechanistic details of these divergent process-es are still not clear. Therefore understanding the regulatory mechanisms of the functioning of the AR in ER-/AR+ breast cancer will provide many novel targets for the purpose of therapeutic intervention. Methods/Results Using bioinformatics tools, we have identified 75 AR targets having prominent roles in cell cycle, apoptosis and metabolism. Herein, we validated 10 genes as AR targets by studying the regulation of these genes in MDA-MB-453 cell line on stimulation by androgens like 5α-dihydrotestosterone (DHT), using RT-qPCR and ChIP assay. It was observed that all the identified genes involved in cell cycle except MAD1L1 were found to be up regulated where