Immunohistochemical Stain of Prohibitin in Various Breast Tumors

ABSTRACT

The diagnosis of breast disease relies primarily on histopathological diagnosis of hematoxylin-eosin stained specimens. Recently, the histopathological diagnosis has been complemented to an extent by analyses of a growing array of immunohistochemical and molecular markers. Prohibitin is an evolutionarily conserved gene with homologues found in organisms ranging from yeast to man. Prohibitin has anti-proliferous activity and available data suggest a role in such diverse processes as normal cell cycle regulation, replicate senescence, cellular immortalization, and the development of sporadic breast tumors. In this study, the prohibitin protein was immunohistochemically stained in representative samples from 10 patients with fibrocystic diseases, 10 with fibroadenomas, 10 with ductal carcinomas in situ, and 33 with infiltrating ductal carcinomas of the breast. There were weaker expressions throughout the tissue in benign breast diseases, but there was stronger staining in the glandular epithelium of breast cancers than with the stromal components. The epithelial and the stromal prohibitin expressions were elevated in carcinomas in situ and in infiltrating ductal carcinomas. However, the expression was most notable in infiltrating ductal carcinomas. There was no correlation between the prohibitin protein and the histologic grade or the TNM stage in breast cancer(p<0.05). These results show that imunohistochemical staining of prohibitin can be used as a diagnostic biomarker in breast cancer.