House Emily, Polwart Anthony, Darbre Philippa, Barr Lester, Metaxas George, Exley Christopher
The Birchall Centre, Lennard-Jones Laboratories, Keele University, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, UK.
J Trace Elem Med Biol. 2013 Oct;27(4):257-66. doi: 10.1016/j.jtemb.2013.05.002. Epub 2013 Jun 1.
The aetiology of breast cancer is multifactorial. While there are known genetic predispositions to the disease it is probable that environmental factors are also involved. Recent research has demonstrated a regionally specific distribution of aluminium in breast tissue mastectomies while other work has suggested mechanisms whereby breast tissue aluminium might contribute towards the aetiology of breast cancer. We have looked to develop microwave digestion combined with a new form of graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry as a precise, accurate and reproducible method for the measurement of aluminium in breast tissue biopsies. We have used this method to test the thesis that there is a regional distribution of aluminium across the breast in women with breast cancer. Microwave digestion of whole breast tissue samples resulted in clear homogenous digests perfectly suitable for the determination of aluminium by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. The instrument detection limit for the method was 0.48 μg/L. Method blanks were used to estimate background levels of contamination of 14.80 μg/L. The mean concentration of aluminium across all tissues was 0.39 μg Al/g tissue dry wt. There were no statistically significant regionally specific differences in the content of aluminium. We have developed a robust method for the precise and accurate measurement of aluminium in human breast tissue. There are very few such data currently available in the scientific literature and they will add substantially to our understanding of any putative role of aluminium in breast cancer. While we did not observe any statistically significant differences in aluminium content across the breast it has to be emphasised that herein we measured whole breast tissue and not defatted tissue where such a distribution was previously noted. We are very confident that the method developed herein could now be used to provide accurate and reproducible data on the aluminium content in defatted tissue and oil from such tissues and thereby contribute towards our knowledge on aluminium and any role in breast cancer.
乳腺癌的病因是多因素的。虽然已知该疾病存在遗传易感性，但环境因素可能也有影响。最近的研究表明，在乳房组织切除术中铝呈现区域特异性分布，而其他研究则提出了乳房组织中的铝可能促成乳腺癌病因的机制。我们致力于开发微波消解结合一种新型石墨炉原子吸收光谱法，作为一种精确、准确且可重复的方法来测量乳房组织活检中的铝含量。我们已使用该方法来验证乳腺癌女性乳房中铝存在区域分布这一论点。对整个乳房组织样本进行微波消解后得到了清澈均匀的消解液，非常适合用石墨炉原子吸收光谱法测定铝。该方法的仪器检测限为0.48μg/L。方法空白用于估计14.80μg/L的背景污染水平。所有组织中铝的平均浓度为0.39μg铝/克组织干重。铝含量在区域上没有统计学上的显著差异。我们开发了一种可靠的方法来精确、准确地测量人体乳房组织中的铝。目前科学文献中此类数据极少，它们将极大地增进我们对铝在乳腺癌中任何假定作用的理解。虽然我们未观察到乳房中铝含量有任何统计学上的显著差异，但必须强调的是，在此我们测量的是整个乳房组织而非脱脂组织，而此前曾有人指出铝在脱脂组织中有这样的分布。我们非常确信，本文所开发的方法现在可用于提供关于脱脂组织及其油脂中铝含量的准确且可重复的数据，从而有助于我们了解铝以及它在乳腺癌中的任何作用。
