Abstract
PurposeP38 mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) level is an important prognostic factor in breast cancer. This study was performed to detect the expressions of P-p38 MAPK expression in breast cancer and explore their correlations with clinicopathological factors.Experimental designTumor samples from 355 Chinese patients diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and adjacent non-cancerous tissue were collected between 2003 and 2010. The expression of P-p38 MAPK was analyzed using immunohistochemical staining. The correlations between P-p38 MAPK expression and clinicopathological findings including age, AJCC Stage, Histologic characters, ER, PR, and HER2 were analyzed using the parametric correlation method. P-p38 MAPK was selected as dependent variable to perform multivariate analysis respectively at last.ResultsOverall, 161 (45 %) and 183 (52 %) of the 355 specimens showed positive P-p38 MAPK staining in the cytoplasm and nucleus respectively, which were significant higher than that in the adjacent non-cancerous tissues in both the cytoplasm and the nucleus. High P-p38 MAPK expression of cytoplasm and nucleus were both associated with positive PR status in luminal A/B type of breast cancer, and were both associated with positive HER2 status in HER2-positive type of breast cancer. The result of multivariate analysis demonstrated that HER2 and PR were both significantly association with P-p38 MAPK expression of cytoplasm and nucleus.ConclusionsOur study suggests that P-p38 MAPK expression were significantly associated with clinicopathological factors and PR/HER2 might association with phosphorylation of p38 MAPK in different types of breast cancer.
Highlights
According to the May Clinic, breast cancer is the second most common cancer after skin cancer in women in the United States and the most frequently diagnosed malignancy among women worldwide that results in 46 million deaths (Lee et al 2014; Jemal et al 2011)
High P-p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) expression of cytoplasm and nucleus were both associated with positive progesterone receptor (PR) status in luminal A/B type of breast cancer, and were both associated with positive human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) status in HER2positive type of breast cancer
Our study suggests that P-p38 MAPK expression were significantly associated with clinicopathological factors and PR/HER2 might association with phosphorylation of p38 MAPK in different types of breast cancer
Summary
According to the May Clinic, breast cancer is the second most common cancer after skin cancer in women in the United States and the most frequently diagnosed malignancy among women worldwide (incidence, approximately 1.38 million per year) that results in 46 million deaths (Lee et al 2014; Jemal et al 2011). As a member of the MAPK family, P38 MAPK has been identified as the critical point for a normal immune and inflammatory response as the point of convergence of intracellular downstream growth factor receptor signaling (Cuenda and Rousseau 2007) and the level of them is reportedly associated with advanced stage and short survival in cancers of the breast (Esteva et al 2004), prostate (Park et al 2003; Khandrika et al 2009), bladder (Kumar et al 2010), liver (Iyoda et al 2003), and lung (Greenberg et al 2002; Koul et al 2013). The expression of P-p38 MAPK in breast cancer and the associated with clinical factors were still not well studied due to a lack of sufficient data
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