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Increased tumor cell expression of Axl is a marker of aggressive features in breast cancer among African women
Author(s) -
Ahmed Lavina,
Nalwoga Hawa,
Arnes Jarle B.,
Wabinga Henry,
Micklem David R.,
Akslen Lars A.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
apmis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1600-0463
pISSN - 0903-4641
DOI - 10.1111/apm.12403
Subject(s) - breast cancer , tissue microarray , immunohistochemistry , estrogen receptor , population , cancer , breast carcinoma , angiogenesis , pathology , cancer research , basal (medicine) , axl receptor tyrosine kinase , biology , receptor tyrosine kinase , oncology , medicine , receptor , jak stat signaling pathway , environmental health , insulin
Axl, a receptor tyrosine kinase belonging to the Tyro/Axl/Mer ( TAM ) family, has been shown to be overexpressed in breast cancer with poor outcome. Moreover, Axl was associated with a basal‐like phenotype ( BLP ) in these tumors. Our aim was to investigate Axl expression in breast cancers from an African population since these tumors are known to be aggressive and have a high frequency of the basal‐like phenotype. We studied 170 paraffin‐embedded breast carcinoma cases by tissue microarrays and immunohistochemical methods. In total, 128 tumor cases (75%) had strong Axl expression and 42 cases (25%) had weak or negative staining. Strong expression of Axl was associated with high tumor grade (p < 0.0005), estrogen receptor ( ER ) negativity (p = 0.024), p53 expression (p = 0.004), P‐cadherin positivity (p = 0.017), and basal‐like phenotypic profiles BLP 2 (p = 0.033) and BLP 3 (p = 0.022). In addition, Axl overexpression also showed an association with markers of tumor cell proliferation and tumor angiogenesis. In conclusion, our findings indicate strong expression of Axl in a high proportion of breast cancer cases among African women and associations with markers of aggressive features, indicating poor prognosis. These findings suggest Axl as a potential therapeutic target in this population.