Jeong Young Ju, Oh Hoon Kyu, Park Sung Hwan, Bong Jin Gu
Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, Catholic University of Daegu, Nam, Daegu 42471, Republic of Korea.
Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, Catholic University of Daegu, Nam, Daegu 42471, Republic of Korea.
Oncol Lett. 2018 Feb;15(2):2380-2386. doi: 10.3892/ol.2017.7607. Epub 2017 Dec 13.
Inflammation and cancer stem cells (CSCs) are becoming increasingly recognized as components of tumorigenesis in breast cancer. In the present study, the association between inflammation and BCSC phenotype was evaluated in human breast cancer tissue. Immunohistochemical staining for cluster of differentiation (CD)24, 44, 4, 8 and 68 was performed using tissue microarray blocks containing 47 consecutive cases of invasive breast carcinoma and 10 normal breast tissue samples. The levels of inflammatory modulators and cytokines, and intratumoral or peritumoral lymphocyte infiltration, were assessed. BCSCs were defined as CD44/CD24 tumor cells. In total, 21.3% of samples exhibited the CD44/CD24 phenotype. This phenotype was identified to be significantly inversely associated with lymph node metastasis. In addition, the CD44/CD24 phenotype was significantly associated with the molecular subtype of breast cancer, and was particularly increased in the basal-like subtype. Furthermore, the CD44/CD24 phenotype was significantly associated with intratumoral inflammation and tumor-infiltrating CD4 T cell counts. Notably, tumor-infiltrating CD4 T cells were significantly increased in patients with the basal-like molecular subtype of breast cancer. In conclusion, the present study identified a significant association between inflammation and the CD44/CD24 phenotype in breast cancer. These results suggest that the interaction between inflammation and CSCs may affect the tumorigenesis and progression of breast cancer. Further studies are required to clarify the role of inflammation and CSCs in breast cancer.
炎症和癌症干细胞（CSCs）越来越被认为是乳腺癌肿瘤发生的组成部分。在本研究中，在人乳腺癌组织中评估了炎症与乳腺癌干细胞（BCSC）表型之间的关联。使用包含47例连续浸润性乳腺癌病例和10例正常乳腺组织样本的组织微阵列块，对分化簇（CD）24、44、4、8和68进行免疫组织化学染色。评估炎症调节因子和细胞因子的水平以及肿瘤内或肿瘤周围淋巴细胞浸润情况。BCSCs被定义为CD44/CD24肿瘤细胞。总共21.3%的样本表现出CD44/CD24表型。该表型被确定与淋巴结转移显著负相关。此外，CD44/CD24表型与乳腺癌的分子亚型显著相关，并且在基底样亚型中尤其增加。此外，CD44/CD24表型与肿瘤内炎症和肿瘤浸润性CD4 T细胞计数显著相关。值得注意的是，在基底样分子亚型的乳腺癌患者中，肿瘤浸润性CD4 T细胞显著增加。总之，本研究确定了乳腺癌中炎症与CD44/CD24表型之间存在显著关联。这些结果表明，炎症与CSCs之间的相互作用可能影响乳腺癌的肿瘤发生和进展。需要进一步研究以阐明炎症和CSCs在乳腺癌中的作用。
