title: The expression of β-catenin in different subtypes of breast cancer and its clinical significance.
abstract: The Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway is implicated in mammary oncogenesis. Reports of β-catenin expression and its association with outcome in breast cancer are controversial. This study was performed to address the distribution of β-catenin expression in invasive breast cancer and the correlation between β-catenin expression and survival of breast cancer patients, and to determine whether β-catenin was specifically activated in any molecular subtypes. Immunohistochemistry was performed on a tissue microarray containing 169 invasive breast cancers to detect expression of β-catenin. One hundred thirty one of the 169 patients were followed up. Correlation between β-catenin expression and different molecular subtypes was determined using chi-square analysis. Overall survival (OS) was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier method with log-rank test. The invasive breast cancer displayed the different patterns of β-catenin expression from normal tissues with significantly increased cytoplasmic and nuclear staining of β-catenin. Aberrant β-catenin expression was observed in 109 in the 169 cases (64.50 %), and there was no difference in β-catenin expression in the four molecular subtypes. Furthermore, aberrant β-catenin expression was significantly associated with adverse outcome not only in the entire cohort but also in each of the different molecular subtypes. β-catenin activation is preferentially found and is associated with a poor clinical outcome in invasive breast cancer independent of molecular subtype.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Center, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Wenhuaxi Road 107#, 250012, Jinan, China.
authors.forename: Shuguang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Shanshan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D011379:Prognosis; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000032:analysis; D060449:Wnt Signaling Pathway / Q000502:physiology; D051176:beta Catenin / Q000032:analysis / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D051176:beta Catenin; C495270:CTNNB1 protein, human; C508053:ERBB2 protein, human