Expression of human mammaglobin and clinicopathologic correlations in breast cancer: The findings in Malaysia.

Background: Human mammaglobin (hMAG) is a secreted protein which has been detected in breast epithelial cells of mammary glands and has been used as a specific marker for breast cancer. Objectives: This study aims at studying the hMAG expression and identifying the significant predictors of hMAG expression in breast cancer tissues. Materials and Methods: The tissue samples were obtained from two major teaching hospitals in the country. They were examined by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and the hMAG expression was evaluated using an established scoring system. Results: Out of 84 breast cancer tissue samples, hMAG was expressed in 50 samples (59.6%). The expression of hMAG was found to be increased with cancer grade. The output of logistic regression model showed that hMAG was overexpressed in breast cancer samples from the first hospital (P = 0.014), but not with those from the second hospital. Conclusions: It can be concluded that hMAG may serve in the diagnosis and the assessment of progression with the increased cancer grade. The dominance in hMAG expression in samples from HUSM may correlate with ethnic, environmental or genetic factors.

Combining mammaglobin and carcinoembryonic mRNA markers for early detection of micrometastases from breast cancers--a molecular study of 59 patients.

INTRODUCTION: As many as 30% of node-negative breast cancer patients relapse within five years, suggesting that current histological detection methods are inadequate for identifying metastatic disease. Detecting small number of cancer cells in the breast tissue or lymph node by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays using a combination of tissue and cancer specific markers might be very useful in the early detection or monitoring of the treatment. Mammaglobin is a member of the uteroglobin gene family and appears to be expressed only in breast tissue. Carcinoembryonic antigen has been the preferred molecular marker for detection of micro metastases in lymph nodes in almost all carcinomas. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Samples were collected from randomly chosen breast cancer patients undergoing modified mastectomy or breast conserving surgery between September 2003 and July 2004. RT-PCR was applied to study the expression of MMG and CEA markers. Breast cancer micrometastases in axillary lymph nodes were also assessed. RESULTS: The MMG marker was positive in 9/10 normal breast tissues, 3/3 breast fibroadenomas and 37/39 of breast carcinoma tissues, giving an overall sensitivity of 94%. The sensitivity was 80% for metastatic lymph node samples. On the other hand CEA showed 95% sensitivity for malignant breast tumors and 100% sensitivity for metastatic lymph nodes. CONCLUSIONS: RT-PCR using a combination of MMG and CEA markers is a powerful tool to complement current routine histopathology techniques for detection of breast cancer metastasis in axillary nodes.

Construction of eukaryotic expression vector of human CC10 gene and expression of CC10 protein in lung adenocarcinoma A549 cell line / 华中科技大学学报（医学）（英德文版）

A mammalian expression plasmid pcDNA3. 1-hCC10 was constructed and identified, then CC10 protein expression in A549 lung cancer cell line was detected. A 273 bp cDNA fragment was amplified from the total RNA of normal lung tissue by using RT-PCR and cloned into expression plasmid cDNA3. 1, and the recombinant plasmid was identified by employing double digestion restriction enzymes Hind III and BamH I and the cDNA sequence was assayed by the Sanger dideoxy-mediated chain termination method. The segment was then transfected into the A549 lung cancer cell line. The protein expression of CC10 was detected by immunofluorescence and Western blot. Our results showed that the cDNA fragment included the entire coding region (273 bp). The recombinant eukaryotic cell expression vector of pcDNA3. 1-hCC10 was successfully constructed, and the sequence of the insert was identical to the published sequence. A549 cells line transfected with the pcDNA3. 1-hCC10 expressed high level of CC10 protein. The recombinant plasmid cDNA3. 1-hCC10 may serve as an effective tool for the study of tumorogenesis and tumor treatment.