Clinical implications for nestin protein expression in breast cancer.

Abstract

Recently, it was observed that nestin is preferentially expressed in basal/myoepithelial cells of the mammary gland, and that this intermediate filament may be used as a myoepithelial marker. However, the clinical and prognostic implications of nestin as a marker for breast cancer are still unclear. We examined mastectomy specimens from 150 breast cancers and matching, adjacent non-cancerous tissues using immunohistochemistry and western blotting. Overall, triple-negative breast cancers - that is, breast cancers that do not express estrogen receptors (ER), progesterone receptors (PR), or human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/neu) - had higher expression rates for nestin than the other breast cancers (57.14%vs 9.30%; P < 0.001). In triple-negative breast cancers, significantly increased nestin expression rates were observed in patients with lymph node metastasis compared with those without node metastasis (25.00%vs 76.92%; P = 0.032). A similar phenomenon was observed for invasive ductal carcinomas compared with ductal carcinoma in situ (16.67%vs 73.33%; P = 0.046). Nestin expression was also found to be significantly related to ER, PR, and P53 expression (P < 0.05). Nestin expression was associated with both shorter breast cancer-specific survival and poor relapse-free survival in the lymph node-positive group (P = 0.028 and P = 0.012 respectively). After Cox regression was carried out, nestin was not shown to be an independent prognostic factor for breast cancer. These findings substantiate the possibility of using nestin as a marker for triple-negative breast cancer. Triple-negative breast cancer progression is associated with nestin; however, the underlying mechanisms of this relationship require further investigation.

• Authors: Caigang Liu, Bo Chen, Jun Zhu, Ruishan Zhang, Fan Yao, Feng Jin, Huimian Xu, Ping Lu
• Journal: Cancer science (Cancer Sci) Vol. 101 Issue 3 Pg. 815-9 (Mar 2010) ISSN: 1349-7006 [Electronic] England
• PMID: 20028381 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)

Chemical References

• Biomarkers, Tumor
• Intermediate Filament Proteins
• NES protein, human
• Nerve Tissue Proteins
• Nestin
• Receptors, Estrogen
• ERBB2 protein, human
• Receptor, ErbB-2

Topics

• Adult
• Aged
• Aged, 80 and over
• Biomarkers, Tumor (analysis)
• Breast Neoplasms (chemistry, mortality, pathology)
• Female
• Humans
• Immunohistochemistry
• Intermediate Filament Proteins (analysis)
• Middle Aged
• Nerve Tissue Proteins (analysis)
• Nestin
• Receptor, ErbB-2 (analysis)
• Receptors, Estrogen (analysis)