OBJECTIVE: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common type of cancer observed in cancer-related mortality because it has a high metastasis ratio. This study aims to investigate the expression levels of several genes, including metastasisrelated colon cancer 1 (MACC1), Filamin A (FLNA), F-box/WD repeat-containing protein 7 (FBXW7), which has an important role in cell signaling, migration and adhesion through the remodeling of the cell skeleton. METHODS: In this study, 21 patients with a precise diagnosis of CRC and 21 controls were included. Gene expressions were examined using the RT-PCR technique. To define the relationship of the genes with metastasis, blood samples were collected from all patients with colon/rectal cancer diagnosis without metastasis at six months before and after the medication with Xelox. RESULTS: Our findings showed that no significant difference was observed in the pre-treatment values compared to the control group, whereas FLNA (p=0.001) expression was observed to be significantly increased following treatment with Xelox. CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, our study is the first study to investigate the effects of Xelox treatment on the expression levels of MACC1, FBXW7 and FLNA genes in non-metastatic colorectal cancer patients in Turkey.

A B STR A CT Objective: Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a sub-type of breast cancer with the worst prognosis and highest risk of mortality. Bone metastasis is the most common metastasis type among women with breast cancer. RANK and OPG, are the members of the family of tumor necrosis factor (TNF), which is effective on osteoblastic and osteoclastic mechanisms. RANKL, interacts with RANK and leads to bone resorption, whereas it inhibits bone destruction when it interacts with OPG. Methods: In this study, we investigated the polymorphisms of RANK, RANKL and OPG genes and their effects on bone metastasis in 45 patients with triple negative breast cancer and 30 healthy controls, using PCR, RFLP and agarose gel electrophoresis techniques. Results: The RANKL genotype and allele distribution analysis revealed a significantly increased CC genotype incidence in patients with TNBC and bone metastasis (p=0.011) and in those without bone metastasis (p=0.004) compared to the control group. The OPG genotype and allele distribution analysis revealed significantly increased C allele incidence in patients with TNBC and bone metastasis (p=0.004) compared to the control group. Likewise, the CC genotype (p=0.001) and C allele incidences (p=0.001) were observed to be significantly increased in patients with TNBC compared to healthy controls. Conclusion: This study is one of the first studies investigating all three RANK/RANKL/OPG gene polymorphisms and the relationship between breast cancer and bone metastasis in our country. We believe that our study will shed light onto further studies to be conducted on triple negative breast cancer and bone metastasis.