Background: It has been suggested that malfunction of immune system may causes testicular cancer. Recently, our understanding of innate immune system has been expanded, by discovery of "Toll-Like Receptors" (TLRs). Some studies have shown that polymorphisms of TLR2 and 4 may affect on the risk of cancer. Also, the role of TLRs 3 and 9 have been shown in apoptosis and metastasis of cancer cells in animal models.
Objective: Little information is available about the influence of innate immunity on testicular malignancy. Therefore, expression of TLRs 2, 3, 4 and 9 as main components of innate immunity has been investigated in this study.
Materials and methods: In this case control study, TLRs gene expression was examined by RT-PCR in normal testis and testicular cancer tissues. Real time quantitative PCR (Q-PCR) analysis was used to compare the relative expression of TLRs between the samples.
Results: mRNAs of TLR 2, 3, 4 and 9 were expressed in all normal and cancer samples. Q-PCR reveals that cancer samples had stronger expression of these genes compared with normal ones.
Conclusion: It seems that the different TLRs expression in testicular cancer cells may contribute to extensive signaling pathways involved in carcinogenesis.
Keywords: Innate Immunity; NF-kappa B; Testicular Cancer; Toll- like Receptors (TLRs).