title: Prognostic role of syncytin expression in breast cancer.
abstract: Breast cancer cells were recently found to produce syncytin, an endogenous retroviral protein implicated in cell fusion, immune regulation, and nitric oxide synthase expression. To determine whether syncytin has a prognostic role in breast cancer, we investigated a series of 165 premenopausal lymph node-negative women for syncytin expression using an immunocytochemical scoring system. Results were analyzed with the Kaplan-Meier method and with the Cox proportional hazard model. Syncytin expression was observed in 38% of the patients, and the degree of syncytin expression constituted a positive prognostic indicator for recurrence-free survival. In addition, we examined a second series of 54 consecutively operated breast cancer patients of all categories and the results supported the conclusions made from the first study. Thus, syncytin expression constitutes a positive prognostic factor in breast cancer--a phenomenon that may be related to the involvement of syncytin in mediating fusions between breast cancer cells and endothelial cells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, IBHV, KVL, Frederiksberg C, Copenhagen, Denmark. lail@kvl.dk
authors.forename: Lars-Inge
authors.initials: LI
authors.lastname: Larsson
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Holck
authors.forename: Ib Jarle
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: Christensen
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D015686:Gene Products, env / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D011257:Pregnancy Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D011379:Prognosis; D016019:Survival Analysis
chemical_list: D015686:Gene Products, env; D011257:Pregnancy Proteins; C405335:syncytin