Department of Pharmaceutical Basic Science, Faculty of Pharmacy, Erciyes University, Kayseri, 38039, Turkey.
Department of Pathology, Medicine Faculty, University of Erciyes, Kayseri, 38039, Turkey.
Clin Exp Med. 2020 Nov;20(4):507-514. doi: 10.1007/s10238-020-00635-2. Epub 2020 May 24.
This study aimed to evaluate the biological and clinical significance of apelin-36 in breast cancer and to compare apelin-36 expression and apoptotic index in both breast tissue and metastatic lymph nodes in patients with invasive breast carcinoma. In this study, both tumor tissue and metastatic lymph nodes of the same patient were collected from 60 cases of invasive breast carcinoma patients (IDC, ILC) and 20 cases of normal breast tissue with no tumor from mammoplasty were used as the control group. The expression of apelin was examined with immunohistochemically, and the apoptotic index was examined with TUNEL methods. According to Kruskal-Wallis analysis, there was a significant difference between IDC and the control group when the apelin expression was compared between the breast tissues (p = 0.001). There were significant differences between the three groups when comparing relationships with apoptotic index (p < 0.001). According to the Mann-Whitney U test, both tumor size and expression of apelin in lymph nodes in ILCs were significantly higher than IDCs. (p = 0.026, p = 0.024, respectively). According to correlation analysis, there was a good correlation between the expression of apelin in breast tissue and apelin expression in lymph nodes (p = 0.000). It is also found a similar relationship in terms of the apoptotic index (p = 0.000). In addition, the negative correlation was found between apelin expression and the apoptotic index in breast tissues (p = 0.003). Based on these results, apelin-36 can be used as a marker for determining the metastasis potential in invasive breast cancer.
本研究旨在评估 apelin-36 在乳腺癌中的生物学和临床意义，并比较浸润性乳腺癌患者乳腺组织和转移性淋巴结中 apelin-36 的表达和细胞凋亡指数。本研究收集了 60 例浸润性乳腺癌患者（IDC、ILC）的肿瘤组织和转移淋巴结，以及 20 例乳腺切除术的正常乳腺组织作为对照组。采用免疫组织化学法检测 apelin 的表达，采用 TUNEL 法检测细胞凋亡指数。Kruskal-Wallis 分析显示，乳腺组织中 apelin 表达的 IDC 与对照组之间存在显著差异（p=0.001）。三组之间比较凋亡指数的关系时，差异有统计学意义（p<0.001）。Mann-Whitney U 检验显示，ILC 中肿瘤大小和淋巴结中 apelin 的表达均明显高于 IDC（p=0.026，p=0.024）。相关性分析显示，乳腺组织中 apelin 的表达与淋巴结中 apelin 的表达之间存在良好的相关性（p=0.000）。凋亡指数也存在类似的关系（p=0.000）。此外，还发现乳腺组织中 apelin 的表达与细胞凋亡指数呈负相关（p=0.003）。基于这些结果，apelin-36 可作为评估浸润性乳腺癌转移潜能的标志物。
