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Pathology & Oncology Research
Published in: Pathology & Oncology Research 3/2018

01-07-2018 | Original Article

Elevated Hu-Antigen Receptor (HuR) Expression is Associated with Tumor Aggressiveness and Poor Prognosis but not with COX-2 Expression in Invasive Breast Carcinoma Patients

Authors: Constantinos Giaginis, Anastasia Sampani, Iolly Kotta-Loizou, Ioanna Giannopoulou, Eugene Danas, Ekaterini Politi, Gerasimos Tsourouflis, Gregorios Kouraklis, Efstratios Patsouris, Antonios Keramopoulos, Lydia Nakopoulou, Stamatios Theocharis

Published in: Pathology & Oncology Research | Issue 3/2018

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Abstract

Hu-antigen R (HuR), a RNA-binding protein, is considered to play a crucial role in tumor development and progression by stabilizing or regulating a group of cellular mRNAs of cancer-related genes, such as cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2). The present study aimed to evaluate the clinical significance of HuR and COX-2 expression in invasive breast carcinoma. HuR and COX-2 protein expression was assessed immunohistochemically on paraffin-embedded breast cancer tissue sections obtained from 121 patients and was statistically analyzed with clinicopathological parameters, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), as well as with tumor cells’ proliferative capacity and overall and disease-free patients’ survival. High HuR expression was positively associated with larger tumor size and advanced disease stage (p = 0.0234 and p = 0.0361, respectively), being more frequently observed in ER negative cases (p = 0.0208). High COX-2 expression was negatively associated with histological (p < 0.0001) and nuclear (p = 0.0033) grade and tumor cells’ proliferative rate (p = 0.0015), being more frequently observed in luminal-A compared to other molecular subtypes (p = 0.0221). High HuR expression was associated with poor overall and disease-free patients’ survival at both univariate (log-rank test, p = 0.0092 and p = 0.0004, respectively) and multivariate (Cox-regression analysis, p = 0.0223 and p = 0.0004, respectively) level. On the other hand, high COX-2 expression was associated with favorable overall and disease-free patients’ survival merely at univariate level (log-rank test, p = 0.0389 and p = 0.0154, respectively). HuR expression was not associated with COX-2 expression (Spearman R = 0.1489, p = 0.1032). The present data support evidence that HuR is associated with tumor aggressiveness and poor prognosis in breast carcinoma, reinforcing its potential as promising therapeutic target in this type of neoplasia.
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Metadata
Title
Elevated Hu-Antigen Receptor (HuR) Expression is Associated with Tumor Aggressiveness and Poor Prognosis but not with COX-2 Expression in Invasive Breast Carcinoma Patients
Authors
Constantinos Giaginis
Anastasia Sampani
Iolly Kotta-Loizou
Ioanna Giannopoulou
Eugene Danas
Ekaterini Politi
Gerasimos Tsourouflis
Gregorios Kouraklis
Efstratios Patsouris
Antonios Keramopoulos
Lydia Nakopoulou
Stamatios Theocharis
Publication date
01-07-2018
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Pathology & Oncology Research / Issue 3/2018
Print ISSN: 1219-4956
Electronic ISSN: 1532-2807
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12253-017-0288-1

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