title: Expression levels of the focal adhesion-associated proteins paxillin and p130CAS in canine and feline mammary tumors.
abstract: Paxillin and p130CAS are two adaptor proteins localized at the focal adhesions which play an important role in cell signaling, cell motility and oncogenic transformation. In this study we evaluated the levels of paxillin and p130CAS in feline and canine mammary tumor tissues at different stages of malignancy. The results obtained by Western blotting analysis showed no significant differences in the amounts of paxillin and p130CAS between normal and non-invasive tumor tissues. By contrast, mammary tumor tissues with the invasive phenotype showed lower levels of paxillin P < 0.01 and higher levels of p130CAS P < 0.001 than normal tissues. The decrease P < 0.001 of the amount of paxillin and the increase P < 0.001 of p130CAS levels were correlated with the progression stage of malignancy. Since paxillin and p130CAS are involved in regulating cell migration, our results suggest that low levels of paxillin together with high levels of p130CAS expression may cause certain breast cancers to be more motile and possibly more aggressive. Thus, both paxillin and p130CAS may represent useful prognosticators of feline and canine breast cancer malignancy.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Strutture, Funzioni e Tecnologie Biologiche, Università di Napoli Federico II, Via Delpino 1, 80137 Napoli, Italy.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Scibelli
authors.forename: Danila
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: d'Angelo
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pelagalli
authors.forename: Simona
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tafuri
authors.forename: Luigi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Avallone
authors.forename: Rossella
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Della Morte
authors.forename: Norma
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Staiano
mesh_terms: D000185:Actinin / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D002371:Cat Diseases / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D002415:Cats; D003598:Cytoskeletal Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D004283:Dog Diseases / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D004285:Dogs; D022001:Focal Adhesions; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D015674:Mammary Neoplasms, Animal / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D051419:Paxillin; D010750:Phosphoproteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D011379:Prognosis; D011506:Proteins; D050717:Retinoblastoma-Like Protein p130; D016608:Talin / Q000378:metabolism; D016596:Vinculin / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D003598:Cytoskeletal Proteins; D051419:Paxillin; D010750:Phosphoproteins; D011506:Proteins; D050717:Retinoblastoma-Like Protein p130; D016608:Talin; D000185:Actinin; D016596:Vinculin