Abstract

There is a pressing need for biomarkers for targeted immunotherapy against breast cancer (BCA), the leading cause of cancer death in women. Previously, a blood group precursor O-core epitope gpCl was found to be highly expressed in breast circulating tumor cells (BCTCs) and BCA cell lines with cancer stem cell (BCSC) features. In this pilot study, the breast tissue distribution of gpC1 was examined using tissue microarrays (TMAs). Notably, gpC1 positive cells were detected in the major histological types of neoplastic breast tissues. Conversely, none of the breast tissues derived from subjects without BCA were gpC1 positive. Thus, gpC1 expression seems to be tumor-specific but not histological type-dependent, reflecting perhaps its characteristics as a conserved epitope of oncofetal blood group precursor antigens.

Highlights

  • Worldwide, breast cancer (BCA) is the most frequent malignancy and the leading cause of cancer death in women [1, 2]

  • We investigated the expression of a blood group precursor O-core glycoepitope gpC1 in BCA at the cellular level and demonstrated that gpC1 is frequently expressed by a number of human BCA cell lines, as well as by breast circulating tumor cells (BCTCs) in stage IV metastatic BCA patients [5,6,7]

  • In the present study, we further investigated the expression of glyco-epitope gpC1 in tissue microarrays from BCA patients who had different histological tumor types classified at various pathological stages

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Summary

Introduction

Breast cancer (BCA) is the most frequent malignancy and the leading cause of cancer death in women [1, 2]. Differential Expression of Blood Group Precursor Antigen in Human Breast Cancer Tissue A blood group precursor O-core epitope gpC1 was found to be highly expressed in breast circulating tumor cells (BCTCs) and BCA cell lines with cancer stem cell (BCSC) features.

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