BRAF Mutations in Iranian Papillary Thyroid Carcinomas

Papillary thyroid cancer or papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common thyroid cancer that is account for 80-90% of all thyroid cancer cases (Kimura et al., 2003; Xing et al., 2005; Yoon et al., 2013). This thyroid cancer is occasionally occurs in women aged 30-40 years old and it is also prevalent in children and patients whose exposed to radiation in head and neck area. These types of tumors are frequently un-encapsulated and show more propensities to metastasis into lymph nodes that may lead to production of cystic structures near thyroid which are diagnosed sorely. Genetic alterations are involved in thyroid carcinogenesis. Recently, occurrence of activation mutations with high frequencies is discovered in BRAF gene (Kimura et al., 2003; Soares et al., 2003; Xu et al., 2003; Jeong et al., 2012; Li, 2012). About 43 somatic mutations in BRAF gene were discovered which are associated with human cancers and located in exon 11 and 15 (Davies et al., 2002; Pakneshan et al., 2013). Serine/Threonineprotein kinase B-RAF or protooncogene B-RAF or in brief B-RAF is a human protein which is coded by BRAF gene (Sithanandam et al., 1990; 1992). Raf kinase is a member of Ras-Raf-MEK-ERKMAP pathway which plays role in cellular proliferation, differentiation and programmed cell death (Peyssonnaux