Universidad de Murcia. Departamento de Biología Celular e Histología
Abstract
The aim of this study was to compare the
expression of fucosyltransferase 8 (FUT8) in breast
cancer tissue and to investigate the relationship between
this marker with tumor progression and its applicability
to differential diagnosis. An immunohistochemical study
was performed for FUT8 using the tissue microarray
technique. In addition, the mRNA and protein levels of
FUT8 in the tissue were also tested by real-time PCR
and Western blot. There was a significant difference in
cytoplasmic expression of FUT8 between breast cancer
tissue and matched normal tissue (p<0.001). The percent
of FUT8 staining in breast cancer tissues ranging from
negative, weak positive, positive and strong positive
were 2.7%, 40.2%, 54% and 3.2%, respectively. High
FUT8 protein expression correlated with lymphatic
metastasis (p=0.008) and with stage status (p=0.039).
We detected that reduced FUT8 expression correlated
with disease-free survival (p=0.02) and overall survival
(p=0.04) of breast cancer patients. Expression of FUT8
can stratify breast cancer tissue and may be considered a
prognostic marker for breast cancer patients