ABSTRACT
Expression of estrogen (ER) and progesterone receptors, c-erbB-2 oncogene, mutant p53 antioncogene (mp53), e-cadherin adhesion, and apoptotic caspase-8 antigens in tumor relative to matched normal tissue specimens from 102 unselected patients with primary ductal breast carcinoma of various tumor grades was assessed by immunohistochemistry and correlated with patient's biologic and clinical features, such as age, menstrual status, age of menarche, tumor grade and diameter, the presence or absence of metastases, and number of infiltrated lymph nodes. We observed association of e-cadherin adhesion, ER and progesterone antigen marker expression with low histologic grade tumors and limited number of lymph node metastases and of c-erbB-2, mp53, and casp-8 antigen marker expression with high histologic grade tumors and increased number of lymph node metastases. We also observed strong correlation (P<0.05) between 4 of the 6 biomarkers and 4 of the 7 patient/tumor parameters examined. Our findings support the hypothesis of independent expression of these 4 strong biomarkers and reveal that nearly 40% of all breast tumor cases studied express similar proportions of 2 major phenotypic combinations [ER/c-erbB-2/mp53/casp-8: +/+/-/+ (19.6%) & +/-/-/+ (17.8%)]. We conclude that, in agreement with earlier reports, our findings support the diagnostic and potential prognostic value of these markers in the clinical assessment of breast cancer.
Subject(s)
Biomarkers, Tumor , Breast Neoplasms/diagnosis , Carcinoma, Ductal, Breast/diagnosis , Lymphatic Metastasis/diagnosis , Breast Neoplasms/metabolism , Breast Neoplasms/pathology , Cadherins/analysis , Cadherins/genetics , Carcinoma, Ductal, Breast/metabolism , Carcinoma, Ductal, Breast/pathology , Case-Control Studies , Caspase 8/genetics , Caspase 8/metabolism , Female , Humans , Immunohistochemistry , Lymph Nodes/metabolism , Lymph Nodes/pathology , Lymphatic Metastasis/pathology , Middle Aged , Predictive Value of Tests , Prognosis , Receptor, ErbB-2/genetics , Receptor, ErbB-2/metabolism , Receptors, Estrogen/genetics , Receptors, Estrogen/metabolism , Receptors, Progesterone/genetics , Receptors, Progesterone/metabolism , Tumor Suppressor Protein p53/analysis , Tumor Suppressor Protein p53/geneticsABSTRACT
We developed a direct sequence-based genotyping method to detect single and multiple HPV L1 DNA and RNA types in genital and dermatological specimens. Our method couples PCR amplification of a highly conserved HPV L1 segment using a broad spectrum-generic primer cocktail mix with automated sequencing of amplified PCR products, followed by GenBank sorting of sequencing data. We genotyped 5 skin and 30 cervical HPV DNA-positive specimens using this method and established its first experimentally derived working cutoff value with the aid of commercial hybridization-based techniques. We suggest that sequence-based genotyping of appropriately amplified DNA and RNA products may serve as a primary HPV detection method in dermatological specimens. It can be applied as an all-purpose genotyping method for rare HPV types not detectable by commercial hybridization-based techniques and for sorting multiple HPV infections by order of prevalence.
