title: Tissue microarray analysis of eIF4E and its downstream effector proteins in human breast cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Eukaryotic initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) is elevated in many cancers and is a prognostic indicator in breast cancer. Many pro-tumorigenic proteins are selectively translated via eIF4E, including c-Myc, cyclin D1, ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and Tousled-like kinase 1B (TLK1B). However, western blot analysis of these factors in human breast cancer has been limited by the availability of fresh frozen tissue and the labor-intensive nature of the multiple assays required. Our goal was to validate whether formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues arranged in a tissue microarray (TMA) format would be more efficient than the use of fresh-frozen tissue and western blot to test multiple downstream gene products.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Breast tumor TMAs were stained immunohistochemically and quantitated using the ARIOL imaging system. In the TMAs, eIF4E levels correlated strongly with c-Myc, cyclin D1, TLK1B, VEGF, and ODC. Western blot comparisons of eIF4E vs. TLK1B were consistent with the immunohistochemical results. Consistent with our previous western blot results, eIF4E did not correlate with node status, ER, PR, or HER-2/neu.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We conclude that the TMA technique yields similar results as the western blot technique and can be more efficient and thorough in the evaluation of several products downstream of eIF4E.
authors.affiliation: Dept, of Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Neuroscience, Breast Cancer Focus Group, Feist-Weiller Cancer Center, Shreveport & LSUHSC-Shreveport, Louisiana, LA 71130, USA. hklein@lsuhsc.edu
authors.forename: Heather E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Kleiner
authors.forename: Prasad
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Krishnan
authors.forename: Jesse
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tubbs
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Carol
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Meschonat
authors.forename: Runhua
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lowery-Nordberg
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Adegboyega
authors.forename: Marcia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Unger
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cardelli
authors.forename: Quyen
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.forename: J Michael
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Mathis
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Clifford
authors.forename: Arrigo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: De Benedetti
authors.forename: Benjamin D L
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000378:metabolism; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D039561:Eukaryotic Initiation Factor-4E / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D017346:Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases / Q000378:metabolism; D015398:Signal Transduction; D046888:Tissue Array Analysis
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D039561:Eukaryotic Initiation Factor-4E; D017346:Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases; C425323:TLK1 protein, human