American Journal of BioMedicine AJBM 2016;4(7):191-198 doi:10.18081/2333-5106/016-7/191-198 Copyright © 2016 AJBM 291 Molecular analysis of PTEN gene in some Iraqi colorectal cancer patients Wafaa Sabri Mahood 1* , Ibtisam Hammood Naser AL Musawi 2 , Mohammed Mahdi Jawad 1 Abstract PTEN gene is refer to Phosphatase and TENs in homolog deleted on chromosome 10 which is a tumor suppressor gene located at chromosome 10q23.31, encoding for protein that have both lipid and protein phosphatase activities. The essential function of PTEN is to block the PI3K pathway by dephosphorylating phosphatidylinositol (PI) 3,4,5-triphosphate to PI-4,5-bisphosphate thus neutralize PI3K function. Genetic alterations of the genes related to PI3K/Akt pathway, including mutations of PI3K and PTEN, facilitate tumor genesis and are common in human cancers. The aim of this study is to assess a molecular analysis of PTEN gene in some colorectal Iraqi patients. Twenty-two patients, 11 colorectal cancers and 11 with bowel inflammation from Iraqi patients were screened in exon 7 of PTEN gene using PCR and sequencing analysis. The results showed 23% (3 out of 22) patients were detected mutations. All 45% (10 out of 22) PTEN mutations in 3 colorectal patients were single base substitutions. In this study there are 60% (6 out of 10) transition mutations, 30% (3out of 10) transversion mutations and 10% (1 out of 10) insertion mutation. In conclusion PTEN gene mutations may cause the etiology of CRC as there were genetic alterations in bowel inflammation and colorectal patients. Keywords: PTEN; Colorectal cancer; PI3K * Corresponding author email: wafa.sabry@yahoo.com 1 College of Education-Ibn Al-Haytham, Baghdad University. ²Research and Training Forensic DNA Centre, Al Nahrain University. Received February 26, 2016; accepted June 12, 2016; published July 25, 2016 Copyright © 2016 MW. This is article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Introduction It is well known that one of the most important kinase cascades is the (PI3K)/Akt signaling pathway which interfere with different cellular functions such as survival, proliferation, migration, differentiation and angio- genesis [1]. PI3Ks is a family of lipid kinases having the ability of phosphor- rylating the 3’OH of the inositolring of phosphoinositides, which are energized by receptor tyrosine kinases include epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), insulin-like growth factor receptor (IGFR) and vascular endothelial growth factor receptor