Overexpression of the anti-adhesin podocalyxin is an independent predictor of breast cancer progression.

Somasiri, Aruna; Nielsen, Julie S; Makretsov, Nikita; McCoy, Marcia L; Prentice, Leah; Gilks, C Blake; Chia, Stephen K; Gelmon, Karen A et al. · Cancer Res · 2004

retrospective_cohort · Level III

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Abstract

Podocalyxin is a CD34-related cell surface molecule with anti-adhesive qualities. We probed a tissue microarray (n = 272) linked to long-term outcome data and found that podocalyxin was highly overexpressed in a distinct subset of invasive breast carcinomas (n = 15; 6%). Univariate disease-specific (P < 0.01) and multivariate regression (P < 0.0005) analyses indicated that this overexpression is an independent indicator of poor outcome. Forced podocalyxin expression perturbed cell junctions between MCF-7 breast carcinoma cells, and it caused cell shedding from confluent monolayers. Therefore, podocalyxin overexpression is a novel predictor of breast cancer progression that may contribute to the process by perturbing tumor cell adhesion.

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