Ordás Javier, Millán Yolanda, Dios Rafaela, Reymundo Carlos, de Las Mulas Juana Martín
Departamento de Anatomía Patológica Comparada, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Córdoba, Campus Universitario de Rabanales, Carretera de Madrid- Cádiz Km 396 14014 Córdoba, Spain.
BMC Cancer. 2007 Sep 20;7:179. doi: 10.1186/1471-2407-7-179.
Feline mammary carcinoma has been proposed as a natural model of highly aggressive, hormone-independent human breast cancer. To further explore the utility of the model by adding new similarities between the two diseases, we have analyzed the oncogene HER-2 status at both the protein and the gene levels.
Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue samples from 30 invasive carcinomas, 7 benign lesions and two normal mammary glands were analyzed. Tumour features with prognostic value were recorded. The expression of protein HER-2 was analyzed by immunohistochemistry and the number of gene copies by means of DNA chromogenic in situ hybridization.
Immunohistochemical HER-2 protein overexpression was found in 40% of feline mammary carcinomas, a percentage higher to that observed in human breast carcinoma. As in women, feline tumours with HER-2 protein overexpression had pathological features of high malignancy. However, amplification of HER-2 was detected in 16% of carcinomas with protein overexpression, a percentage much lower than that observed in their human counterpart.
Feline mammary carcinoma would be a suitable natural model of that subset of human breast carcinomas with HER-2 protein overexpression without gene amplification.
猫乳腺肿瘤已被视为极具侵袭性、激素非依赖性人类乳腺癌的自然模型。为通过增加两种疾病之间的新相似性进一步探索该模型的效用，我们在蛋白质和基因水平分析了癌基因HER-2的状态。
分析了30例浸润性癌、7例良性病变及两个正常乳腺的福尔马林固定、石蜡包埋组织样本。记录具有预后价值的肿瘤特征。通过免疫组织化学分析蛋白质HER-2的表达，并通过DNA显色原位杂交分析基因拷贝数。
40%的猫乳腺癌中发现免疫组织化学HER-2蛋白过表达，该比例高于人类乳腺癌中的观察值。与女性情况一样，HER-2蛋白过表达的猫肿瘤具有高恶性的病理特征。然而，在16%蛋白过表达的癌中检测到HER-2扩增，该比例远低于人类相应肿瘤中的观察值。
猫乳腺癌将是人类乳腺癌中HER-2蛋白过表达但无基因扩增这一亚组的合适自然模型。
