The glutathione-related detoxification pathway in the human breast: a highly coordinated system disrupted in the tumour tissues.

Glutathione and the associated enzymes, glutathione S-transferases, peroxidases, and reductase, have been implicated in cancer chemoresistance. This pathway was investigated in paired cancerous and peritumoral breast samples from 41 women. The tumours exhibited a higher redox status as deduced from increased transferase, peroxidase, and reductase activities and from higher total and reduced glutathione contents. Several components were strongly correlated in peritumoral tissues, suggesting a highly co-ordinated glutathione pathway that appeared disrupted in breast tumours with only a few correlations left. Therefore, resistance could spontaneously result from deregulated variations in the glutathione pathway, which might be relevant to the malignant disease progression.