Expression of mage-a genes and soluble icam-1 In Egyptian breast cancer patients : possible prognostic impact

Abstract EN

Background : An increased understanding of the pathogenesis of breast cancers is imperative to continuous efforts of innovative approaches for its diagnosis and immunotherapy.

Continuous search for potentially prognostic biomarkers should be addressed.

An interesting category of tumor-associated antigens encoded by Melanoma-Associated Genes (MAGE) and gene products involved in cancer progression like cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) are innovative prognostic markers.

Aim : The present study was done to find out a possible prognostic impact of MAGE-A and SICAM gene expression in Egyptian breast cancer.

Methods : This study included 51 females with breast tumors, 9 females with benign fibroodenoma and 10 age matched control females MAGE-A gene expression was done in extracts of both benign and malignant breast tissues by conventional reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).

In addition, mRNA transcripts of soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM-1) were quantified in extracts of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) by real time RT-PCR.

Results : Expression of MAGE-A1, 3 and 4 was detected in 43.1%, 54.9% and 25.5% of malignant tumors respectively while undetectable expression was shown by benign lesions.

Interestingly, expression of these MAGE-A alleles was much more pronounced in tumors the invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) histologic type, advanced stages, the ER positive phenotype and lymph node metastasis.

There was also a highly significant increase in expression rate of sICAM-1 of breast cancer patients as compared to those with benign lesions and healthy controls.

Only tumors at advanced stages and those with the ER negative phenotype showed significantly increased expression of sICAM-1 as compared to their corresponding partners.

Conclusion : It could be concluded, that sICAM-1 may play an important role in the metastatic process and can be employed as an indicator of metastasis in clinical setting