PurposeαB-crystallin, a small heat shock protein, is an anti-apoptotic protein associated with aggressive tumor behavior. A recent study revealed that αB-crystallin is overexpressed in a metastatic variant of the GI101A human breast carcinoma cell line. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether αB-crystallin is related to other breast tumor markers and can predict a breast cancer prognosis.MethodsEighty-two patients who underwent breast cancer surgery at Hallym Sacred Heart Hospital were enrolled. αB-crystallin expression was determined by immunohistochemical staining. Estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor, lymphovascular invasion, histological grade, other tumor markers and time to recurrence were compared with αB-crystallin expression.ResultsαB-crystallin expression in breast cancer tissues was associated with PR (p=0.030), the number of metastatic lymph nodes (pN) (p=0.020), lymphovascular invasion (p=0.022), histological grade (p=0.004) and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) (p=0.004). αB-crystallin expression significantly decreased time to recurrence (p=0.039).ConclusionThe results revealed a strong relationship between αB-crystallin and poor prognostic factors such as the number of metastatic lymph nodes (especially pN2), TNBC, and rapid time to recurrence. We believe that αB-crystallin could be a novel oncoprotein biomarker of a poor prognosis in breast cancer.

Recent studies have demonstrated that obesity is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain to be fully elucidated. Adiponectin is one of major adipokines secreted from adipose tissue. This protein is believed to act through AdipoR1 and has been suggested to play an important role in cancer development. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the expression of AdipoR1 in invasive breast cancer tissue compared to normal breast tissue. And then, we analyzed clinical significance of AdipoR1 in invasive breast cancer. Tissues were obtained from 269 patients who were underwent curative surgery with no prior treatment for invasive ductal carcinoma from Jan. 2003 to Dec. 2008 in Hallym Sacred Heart Hospital. A tissue microarray (TMA) containing 269 invasive ductal carcinomas as well as 269 adjacent normal breast tissues was established from paraffin-embedded archived tissue for further analysis. AdipoR1 expression was investigated in epithelium and stroma by immunohistochemistry, using 1:1600 dilution of rabbit anti-adiponectin receptor antibody, and correlated with clinical and pathologic tumor parameters. In 269 patients, median follow-up period was 57 months. AdipoR1 was detected in epithelial and stromal component of both normal breast and invasive ductal carcinoma tissues. In epithelium, immunoreactivity for AdioR1 was much lower in cancer tissue than normal one (24.5% versus 72%). This trend was quite similar in stroma, although the gap between cancer and normal was a bit narrow (48.7% versus 77.6%). AdipoR1 was more expressed in stroma than in epithelium among invasive breast cancer (48.7% versus 24.5%). In clinicopathologic features, mean age at diagnosis of AdipoR1 expression group in both epithelium and stroma was older than negative group. Furthermore, in epithelial component, HER-2/neu overexpression rate was slightly higher in AdipoR1 negative group than in positive one (27.8% versus 15%, p<0.059). And, Ki67 was more expressed in AdipoR1 negative group than in positive one (49.5% versus 34.5%, p<0.051). However, in stroma component, there was no other difference between AdipoR1 expression and clinicopathologic parameters. In survival analysis, AdipoR1 expression group in stroma showed significantly better disease free survival (DFS) than negative group (p<0.02). DFS curve according to AdipoR1 expression in epithelium showed a quite similar trend with ones in stroma (p=0.06). This study showed that AdipoR1 expression was suppressed in both epithelium and stroma of invasive breast cancer tissue, compared to normal breast tissue. Even though there was no significant difference between AdipoR1 expression and many well-known prognostic factors, AdipoR1 expression in stroma as well as epithelium appears to play a role of good prognostic factor to predict disease progression somehow. Citation Format: Lee-Su Kim, Younok Lee, Hae Sung Kim. Clinical significance of adiponectin receptor 1 (AdipoR1) expression in invasive breast cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 551. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-551