Published in:
01-05-2017 | Original Article
Expression of cell polarity protein scribble differently affects prognosis in primary tumor and lymph node metastasis of breast cancer patients
Authors:
Junta Sakakibara, Masahiro Sakakibara, Nobumitsu Shiina, Toshihiko Fujimori, Yoshiyuki Okubo, Kaoru Fujisaki, Takeshi Nagashima, Takafumi Sangai, Yukio Nakatani, Masaru Miyazaki
Published in:
Breast Cancer
|
Issue 3/2017
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Abstract
Background
We evaluated the relationship between the immunohistochemically determined expression of the cell polarity protein scribble to prognosis in different environments of estrogen receptor (ER) expression and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT).
Methods
We immunohistochemically evaluated the expression level of scribble in primary tumors and lymph node metastases of 225 node-positive breast cancer patients who had received chemotherapy. We then evaluated metastasis-free survival (MFS) in the absence or presence of ER and the EMT-related protein vimentin.
Results
Among patients with ER–positive tumors, patients with low scribble expression in the primary tumor had a significantly shorter MFS than patients with high scribble expression (p = 0.0225). Furthermore, among patients with vimentin-negative tumors, patients with low expression of scribble in the primary tumor had significantly shorter MFS than patients with high expression of scribble (p = 0.0463). In contrast, among patients with vimentin-positive tumors, patients with high expression of scribble in the primary tumor had significantly shorter MFS than patients with low expression of scribble (p = 0.0343). Moreover, among patients with ER–negative tumors, patients with high expression of scribble in lymph node metastases showed significantly higher expression of E-cadherin in metastases (p = 0.0407) and had significantly shorter MFS than patients with low expression of scribble (p = 0.0064).
Conclusions
The prognostic significance of cell polarity depended on the ER expression and EMT. Furthermore, the preservation of cell polarity in metastases was associated with mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition and worse prognosis. Cell polarity promotes the diversity of metastasis in combination with malignancy grade in breast cancer patients.