Abstract
BackgroundThe main focus of several studies concerned with cancer progression and metastasis is to analyze the mechanisms that allow cancer cells to interact and quickly adapt with their environment. Integrins, a family of transmembrane glycoproteins, play a major role in invasive and metastatic processes. Integrins are involved in cell adhesion in both cell-extracellular matrix and cell-cell interactions, and particularly, β1 integrin is involved in proliferation and differentiation of cells in the development of epithelial tissues. This work aimed to investigate the putative role of β1 integrin expression on survival and metastasis in patients with breast invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC). In addition, we compared the expression of β1 integrin in patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).MethodsThrough tissue microarray (TMA) slides containing 225 samples of IDC and 67 samples of DCIS, β1 integrin expression was related with several immunohistochemical markers and clinicopathologic features of prognostic significance.Resultsβ1 integrin was overexpressed in 32.8% of IDC. In IDC, β1 integrin was related with HER-2 (p = 0.019) and VEGF (p = 0.011) expression and it had a significant relationship with metastasis and death (p = 0.001 and p = 0.05, respectively). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that the overexpression of this protein is very significant (p = 0.002) in specific survival (number of months between diagnosis and death caused by the disease). There were no correlation between IDC and DCIS (p = 0.559) regarding β1 integrin expression.ConclusionsConsidering that the expression of β1 integrin in breast cancer remains controversial, specially its relation with survival of patients, our findings provide further evidence that β1 integrin can be a marker of poor prognosis in breast cancer.Virtual slidesThe virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/6652215267393871
Highlights
The main focus of several studies concerned with cancer progression and metastasis is to analyze the mechanisms that allow cancer cells to interact and quickly adapt with their environment
These results are shown in Table 1. β1 integrin positive tumors did not correlate with tumor size, pathologic stage, age, menstrual status, lymph node status and tumor grade but presented a close relation with death and metastasis (p = 0.001 and p = 0.05, respectively) as well as with HER-2 (p = 0.019) and VEGF (p = 0.011)
Our results indicate that the expression of β1 integrin has an impact in diseasespecific survival with p = 0.002 (Figure 1)
Summary
The main focus of several studies concerned with cancer progression and metastasis is to analyze the mechanisms that allow cancer cells to interact and quickly adapt with their environment. This work aimed to investigate the putative role of β1 integrin expression on survival and metastasis in patients with breast invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC). Integrins are a family of transmembrane receptors They are heterodimers composed by two subunits, α and β, which are non-covalently linked and depend of divalent cations [1]. Invasive breast carcinoma is associated with a high mortality rate due to invasion to the lymph nodes, adjacent tissues and due to metastasis. As verified in several other solid tumors, peritumoral lymphatic and blood invasion are the main factor related to the presence of lymph node metastasis and, in breast cancer, they are more closely related to tumor size and histological grade and it is known that integrins are closely related to these processes [8,9]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
