title: Overexpression of either c-myc or c-erbB-2/neu proto-oncogenes in human breast carcinomas: correlation with poor prognosis.
abstract: Tumor specimens from 116 untreated patients with primary breast carcinoma at different clinical stages were analyzed for the structure and/or the expression of c-myc and c-erbB-2/neu proto-oncogenes. An amplification of the c-myc proto-oncogene (3 to greater than 50 fold) was detected only in 6% of carcinomas, with no evidence of locus rearrangement. High c-myc RNA levels detected in 45% of tumors were found significantly (p less than 0.01) correlated with lymph node involvement. Amplification (3 to greater than 30 fold) of the c-erbB-2/neu gene was observed in 20% of cancers. A 5 kb c-erbB-2/neu gene transcript was detected in the 103 cancer specimens analyzed. High levels of transcripts were observed in 36% of tumors. Overexpression did not depend only on amplification since found in 14 tumor samples with a single gene copy. The gene amplification and overexpression were found significantly associated with cancers of poor prognosis. Moreover our data show that both proto-oncogenes are overexpressed only in 12.5% of tumor samples and suggest that each gene might play a different role in tumor progression.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Pharmacologie Clinique et Moléculaire, Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Guérin
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Barrois
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Terrier
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Spielmann
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Riou
mesh_terms: D015152:Blotting, Northern; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000235:genetics*; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics; D005784:Gene Amplification; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D011379:Prognosis; D000090063:Proto-Oncogene Mas; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D016271:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-myc; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D012334:RNA, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D004273:DNA, Neoplasm; D000090063:Proto-Oncogene Mas; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; D016271:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-myc; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D012334:RNA, Neoplasm; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; C000715470:MAS1 protein, human