Serum and tissue expression of gelatinase and Twist in breast cancer

J. Huang, L. Ang, M.-Q. Liu, H.-G. Hu, J. Wang, Q. Zou, Y. Zhao, L. Zheng, M. Zhao, Z.-S. Wu

Department of Pathology, The Second People’s Hospital of Hefei, Hefei, Anhui, P.R. China. zhaomineryuan@126.com

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• Oncology

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the levels of matrix metalloproteinases (MMP)-2, MMP-9 and Twist in tumor tissue and serum from 46 cases of breast cancer patients and 31 cases of benign breast diseases patients by immunohistochemical staining and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, respectively. The association of gelatinase and Twist expression with clinicopathological factors was also analyzed in the present study.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: The studied population consisted of 46 breast cancer patients and 31 benign breast disease patients. Serum concentrations of MMP-2, MMP-9 and Twist were measured by using human enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The protein expression of Twist, MMP-2 and MMP-9 were determined by immunohistochemical.

RESULTS: The results show that the levels of MMP-2, MMP-9 and Twist expression were significantly increased in tissue and serum from breast cancer group, compared to the group of benign breast lesions diseases (p < 0.05). The pre-operative serum levels of MMP-2, MMP-9 and Twist were positively correlated with their expression in breast cancer tissues, respectively (p < 0.05). We, then, correlated serum and tissue levels of MMP-2, MMP-9 and Twist in breast cancer samples with patients’ clinicopathologic characteristics. Compared to low expression, high serum and tissue levels of MMP-2 and Twist were associated with lymph node metastasis and higher TNM stage, high tissue MMP-9 levels were associated with lymph node metastasis and higher TNM stage, and high serum MMP-9 levels were associated with c-erbB-2 expression.

CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that serum levels of MMP-2, MMP-9 and Twist could be as potential biomarkers for diagnosis and predicting metastasis of breast cancer.

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