Pro64His (rs4644) polymorphism within galectin-3 is a risk factor of differentiated thyroid carcinoma and affects the transcriptome of thyrocytes engineered via CRISPR/Cas9 system

Galectin-3 (LGALS3) is an important glycoprotein involved in the malignant transformation of thyrocytes acting in the extracellular matrix, cytoplasm and nucleus where it regulates TTF-1 and TCF4 transcription factors. Within LGALS3 gene, a common genetic polymorphism (c.191C>A, p.Pro64His; rs4644) encoding for the variant Proline to Histidine at codon 64 has been extensively studied. However, data on rs4644 in the context of thyroid cancer are lacking. Thus, the aim of the present work was to evaluate the role of the SNP rs4644 as risk factor for differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) and to verify the effect on the transcriptome in thyrocytes.