Purpose: DYX1C1 has three alternatively spliced transcripts. Therefore, we expect that alternative transcripts of DYX1C1 are used as a biomarker to detect specific cancer.
Methods: RT-PCR analysis is conducted in order to detect expression of the DYX1C1 gene and the PCR products were analyzed using the Image J program to compare the expression levels of each transcript.
Results: We found one of the transcripts was directly associated with an HERV-H LTR element that could be translated into protein sequence. Four new alternative transcripts were identified by RT-PCR analysis with various human tissue samples including 10 normal and adjacent tumor tissue sets. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis showed the transcriptional activity of V3 and V2 was higher in tumor than in normal tissue samples, especially in the colorectal tissue samples.
Conclusion: Our results indicated that alternatively spliced transcript variants of the DYX1C1 gene could be used as cancer biomarkers to detect colorectal cancer.