The expression level of carcinoembryonic antigen under hypoxic condition in breast cancer ;microenvironment and its prognostic value of breast cancer / 中华检验医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the correlationbetween thecarcinoembryonic antigen ( CEA) level and hypoxic status of breast cancer, and itspotential of being a prognostic factor in breast cancer. Methods Breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231 was cultured under hypoxic or normoxic condition to determine the protein level of CEA using Western blotting.30 breast cancer tissue sections were collected in Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital from April 2013 to June 2015.and were detected the expression of CEA, hypoxia-inducible factor-1α( HIF-1α) and carbonic anhydrase-9 ( CA-9 ) by immunohistochemistry.Serum CEA were detected by immunofluorescence assay of 166 breast cancer patients collected from April 2009 to June 2011.The correlation between the expression levels of CEA and breast cancer patients'clinical data was analyzed by Logistic univariate analysis.Kaplan-Meier method was employed to calculate the progression-free survival of patients with breast cancer. Log-rank test was conducted to compare the difference between groups.Results CEA levels were significantly higher in breast cancer cells under hypoxic condition in a time-dependent manner, compared to normoxiccontrol. Immunohistochemical staining indicated that CEA was coexpressed with HIF-1αand CA-9 in breast cancer and linear regression analysis revealed that CEA expression correlated with HIF-1α( P =0.0096 );Preoperative serum levels of CEA were closely related with tumor size ( P =0.015 ) andLymph node metastasis(P=0.032); CEA positive patients achieved a progression-free survival of 29.85months(versus 39.08 months in CEA negative patients, P=0.003).Conclusions Hypoxia upregulates CEA expression in breast cancer and the levels of preoperative serum CEA is a potential prognostic factor ofbreast cancer.