Sexual dimorphism in the expression of GKN2 and FOXA2 genes in the human stomach

Abstract

A large proportion of the transcriptome is sex biased in a wide range of taxa. Sexually dimorphic genes expression is highly tissue-dependent. Although gastric cancer exhibits sex bias to some extent, sexually dimorphic gene expression in the stomach is yet to be fully understood. The aim of the present study was to compare the expression levels of 12 genes in the gastric tissue between age-matched healthy men and women of different age groups. A total of 70 human antrum gastric tissue samples were obtained by endoscopy. The difference in expression levels of the 12 intended genes between two genders was investigated using quantitative Real-Time PCR, following total RNA extraction. The results indicated that the expression levels of both the GKN2 (7.2-fold, p < 0.001) and FOXA2 (3.7-fold, p = 0.003) were significantly higher in men compared to those in women. In addition, FOXA1 gene expression was age-dependent only in women. Interestingly, the expression level of FOXA1 was significantly higher in premenopausal women compared to postmenopausal women (2.53-fold, p = 0.016). The expression levels of some of the investigated genes in this study were sex-dependent in the stomach. This sexual dimorphism in gene expression might influence the differential susceptibility to the gastric cancer between the sexes.