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Mammaglobin , a potential marker of breast cancer nodal metastasis
Author(s) -
Leygue Etienne,
Snell Linda,
Dotzlaw Helmut,
Hole Kate,
Troup Sandy,
HillerHitchcock Tamara,
Murphy Leigh C.,
Watson Peter H.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
the journal of pathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.964
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1096-9896
pISSN - 0022-3417
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1096-9896(199909)189:1<28::aid-path389>3.0.co;2-h
Subject(s) - mammaglobin , breast cancer , lymph node , medicine , metastasis , pathology , axillary lymph nodes , cancer research , oncology , cancer
The Mammaglobin gene, a breast‐specific member of the uteroglobin gene family, has been previously identified as being overexpressed in some breast tumours, but the cellular origin and relationship to tumour progression are unknown. Using a subtractive hybridization approach, mammaglobin mRNA has also been found to be overexpressed in the in situ compared to the invasive element within an individual breast tumour. Further study by in situ hybridization performed in 13 breast tumours, selected to include normal, in situ , and invasive primary tumour elements, and in most cases axillary lymph node metastases, revealed that mammaglobin expression occurs in all elements, is restricted to epithelial cells, and is significantly increased in tumour cells compared with normal cells ( p < 0·04). Analysis of mammaglobin expression within 20 independent primary breast tumours and their corresponding axillary lymph nodes revealed that all 13 lymph nodes positive and none of the seven nodes negative for metastatic breast carcinoma by histology were mammaglobin‐positive by reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) ( p =0·0001). These results suggest that mammaglobin could be a marker of axillary lymph node breast metastases. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.