[Role of cadherins in health and in developing breast cancer]

[Epithelial cadherins and associated molecules in invasive lobular breast cancer]

AIM

to estimate the expression of cell adhesion molecules E- and P-cadherin, as well as that of cadherin-catenin complexes in invasive lobular breast cancer (BC) cells.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

250 cases of postoperative material from patients diagnosed with invasive lobular BC were studied. The expressions of cell adhesion molecules E-cadherin, P-cadherin, β-catenin, p120 catenin, and vimentin were determined by immunohistochemical assay in all cases. The examined cases were divided into molecular biological subtypes, based on the evaluation of estrogen receptors (ER), progesterone receptors (PR), HER-2/neu, and Ki-67 proliferative index.

RESULTS

The membrane expression of E-cadherin on the tumor cells was found to be preserved in 93%; the cytoplasmic expression of β-catenin and p120-catenin appeared in 60 and 72% of cases, respectively. The expression of P-cadherin was detected in 82% of cases. The coexpression of E- and P-cadherin was noted in 90% of all the examined cases. There was a correlation between the expression of E- and P-cadherins (V=0.34; p<0.05).

CONCLUSION

The BC cells showed the coexpression of E- and P-cadherins, as well as release of the molecules β- and p120-catenins into the cytoplasm of tumor cells, which leads to the activation of intracellular mechanisms for changing the structure of the cytoskeleton and the level of proliferation. The above-mentioned mechanisms are accompanied by the activation of epithelial-mesenchymal transition. The intracellular mechanisms resulted in progressive cancer and its metastasis.

Prognostic value of stromal decorin expression in patients with breast cancer: a meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Numbers of studies have investigated the biological functions of decorin (DCN) in oncogenesis, tumor progression, angiogenesis and metastasis. Although many of them aim to highlight the prognostic value of stromal DCN expression in breast cancer, some controversial results still exist and a consensus has not been reached until now. Therefore, our meta-analysis aims to determine the prognostic significance of stromal DCN expression in breast cancer patients.

METHODS

PubMed, EMBASE, the Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases were searched for full-text literatures met out inclusion criteria. We applied the hazard ratio (HR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) as the appropriate summarized statistics. Q-test and I(2) statistic were employed to estimate the level of heterogeneity across the included studies. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to further identify the possible origins of heterogeneity. The publication bias was detected by Begg's test and Egger's test.

RESULTS

There were three English literatures (involving 6 studies) included into our meta-analysis. On the one hand, both the summarized outcomes based on univariate analysis (HR: 0.513; 95% CI: 0.406-0.648; P<0.001) and multivariate analysis (HR: 0.544; 95% CI: 0.388-0.763; P<0.001) indicated that stromal DCN expression could promise the high cancer-specific survival (CSS) of breast cancer patients. On the other hand, both the summarized outcomes based on univariate analysis (HR: 0.504; 95% CI: 0.389-0.651; P<0.001) and multivariate analysis (HR: 0.568; 95% CI: 0.400-0.806; P=0.002) also indicated that stromal DCN expression was positively associated with high disease-free survival (DFS) of breast cancer patients. No significant heterogeneity or publication bias was observed within this meta-analysis.

CONCLUSIONS

The present evidences indicate that high stromal DCN expression can significantly predict the good prognosis in patients with breast cancer. The discoveries from our meta-analysis have better be confirmed in the updated review pooling more relevant investigations in the future.