Objective: Reportedly, fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 (FGFR3) that regulates embryonic growth and development may function as an oncoprotein in certain malignancies. We aimed to investigate the biological significance of FGFR3 expression in invasive breast cancer. Methods: FGFR3 expression was investigated in 50 invasive breast cancer specimens by immunohistochemistry. The association between FGFR3 expression and clinicopathological/molecular parameters or prognosis was evaluated. Results: Weak FGFR3 expression was observed in myoepithelial cells, but not in duct epithelial cells, of the normal mammary ducts and lobules. FGFR3 expression in breast cancer cells was observed in 19 of 50 (38.0%) cases (9 weak positive and 10 strong positive). Besides the cytoplasm and cell membrane, nuclear staining was observed in 3 of 10 strong-positive cases. FGFR3 was further detected in non-neoplastic duct epithelial cells or duct papillomatosis in 5 strong-positive cases. No significant correlation was observed between FGFR3 expression and specific clinicopathological/molecular parameters. In contrast, FGFR3 expression was found to be significantly associated with overall survival in our cohort. Conclusions: FGFR3 expression in invasive breast cancer was not found to be significantly associated with specific clinicopathological/molecular parameters, but might be used as a candidate marker for a poor prognosis.
High levels of tubulin expression have been described in a variety of human malignant tumors, and glu-tubulin, in which the C-terminal tyrosine of α-tubulin is removed by tubulin carboxypeptidase. Over-expression has been reported in the malignant tumors of the mammary gland and correlated with poor prognosis immunohistochemically. Furthermore, Nielsen et al. proposed that the use of a panel of four markers (ER, HER 2, CK 5/6, and EGFR) could accurately identify basal-like phenotype carcinoma (BPC) with widely available standard pathologic tools. In our study, major prognostic factors such as patient age, tumor size, histological grade, axillary lymph node metastasis, vessel invasion, and local recurrence in BPC were not significantly different from non BP carcinoma (NBPC). However, the BPC group showed a higher ratio of distant metastasis than that of the NBPC group. In triple-negative carcinoma (TNC) cases, staining for glu-tubulin was observed in 46 cases (63.8%), which consisted of 42 of the 58 BPC patients (72.4%) and 4 of the 14 NBPC patients (28.6%). A significant association was found between the expression of glu-tubulin and BPC, but not NBPC. It seems that our findings also agree with the observation that BPC exhibits aggressive biological behavior and increases the content of glu-tubulin, which plays a greater role in migration and invasion.
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