[Expression of the retinoic acid nuclear receptors and retinoid X receptor gene in human breast cancer].

A number of studies have shown that retinoids can inhibit malignant cell growth including certain breast carcinoma cells. Its inhibitory effect is observed only in ER positive but not in ER negative breast cancer cells. We examined retinoic acid nuclear receptors (RARs) and retinoids X receptors (RXRs) levels in 6 breast carcinoma cell lines and 18 breast cancer biopsy specimens. We found that RAR-alpha mRNA level was significantly higher in ER positive cell lines and samples. RAR-gamma mRNA was expressed at relatively high levels in majority of tumor samples independent of the ER-status while RAR-beta mRNA was expressed at low levels. We also found high RXR-alpha mRNA levels in all of the tumor samples examined while RXR-gamma mRNA could not be detected. Our study suggests a possibility that retinoids inhibit tumor cell growth through RAR-alpha and RAR-alpha levels may serve as a potential marker to determine responsiveness of patients to retinoids therapy.