Elevated mammaglobin (h-MAM) expression in breast cancer is associated with clinical and biological features defining a less aggressive tumour phenotype

Breast Cancer Research

J Schneider⁴  A Tejerina¹  J Sánchez³  AR Lucas¹  M Pollán²  F Martínez-Arribas¹  MJ Núñez-Villar¹ 

[1]Fundación Tejerina-Centro de Patología de la Mama, Madrid, Spain

[2]Centro Nacional de Epidemiología, Departamento de Epidemiología del Cáncer, Madrid, Spain

[3]Universidad de Alcalá, Facultad de Medicina, Madrid, Spain

[4]Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Madrid, Spain

关键词: reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction;    mammaglobin;    cancer;    breast;   

Others  :  1118807
DOI  :  10.1186/bcr587

 received in 2002-08-26, accepted in 2003-02-12,  发布年份 2003

【 摘 要 】

Background

Mammaglobin (h-MAM) is expressed mainly by breast epithelial cells, and this feature has been used to detect circulating breast cancer cells and occult metastases in sentinel axillary lymph nodes of breast cancer patients. However, the biological role of mammaglobin is completely unknown.

Methods

We studied 128 fresh-frozen breast cancer specimens by means of reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction and quantified their h-MAM mRNA expression. This was then correlated with histological and nuclear grade, oestrogen and progesterone receptor expression, c-erb-B2 and mutant p53 expression, as well as with cellular proliferation measured by means of the Ki67 labelling index, DNA ploidy and S-phase, and finally with the presence or not of invaded axillary nodes in the mastectomy specimen.

Results

In the univariate analysis, high h-MAM expression (above the median for the whole group) correlated significantly (P < 0.05) with oestrogen and progesterone receptor expression, diploid DNA content, low Ki67 labelling index, low nuclear grade and almost significantly (P = 0.058) with the absence of axillary nodal invasion in the mastectomy specimen. In a final, multivariate model, only progesterone receptor expression, diploid DNA content and absence of nodal invasion were found to be independently associated with high h-MAM expression.

Conclusion

All of the features associated with mammaglobin expression reflect, without exception, a less aggressive tumour phenotype. Further studies are needed to clarify whether this is attributable to h-MAM expression itself, or to another mechanism of which mammaglobin expression forms part.

【 授权许可】

   
2003 2003 Núñez-Villar et al., licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

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