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Comparative Study
. 2007;9(4):R55.
doi: 10.1186/bcr1760.

Circulating Bmi-1 mRNA as a possible prognostic factor for advanced breast cancer patients

Javier Silva  1 , Vanesa García, José M García, Cristina Peña, Gemma Domínguez, Raquel Díaz, Yolanda Lorenzo, Alicia Hurtado, Antonio Sánchez, Félix Bonilla
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Circulating Bmi-1 mRNA as a possible prognostic factor for advanced breast cancer patients

Javier Silva et al. Breast Cancer Res. 2007.

Abstract

Introduction: Deregulation of Polycomb member Bmi-1 is involved in cell proliferation and human oncogenesis. Modulation of Bmi-1 is found in several tumor tissues, including primary breast carcinomas; however, analysis of Bmi-1 in plasma of cancer patients has not been reported. This is the first study that evaluates Bmi-1 in plasma by using a large series of primary breast carcinomas to investigate the presence at diagnosis of detectable Bmi-1 mRNA in plasma and possible correlations between this event and a series of clinical-pathological parameters of the tumors.

Methods: Bmi-1 expression levels were quantified in plasma of 111 breast cancer patients and in 20 healthy controls by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction.

Results: Cancer patients with the presence of Bmi-1 mRNA in plasma had higher levels of Bmi-1 expression than healthy controls with Bmi-1 mRNA in plasma. The higher expression levels of Bmi-1 correlated with well-established markers of poor clinical outcome in breast cancer such as positive p53 immunostaining and negative progesterone receptors. Moreover, we described for the first time a statistically significant correlation between Bmi-1 expression in plasma of breast cancer patients and disease-free and overall survival in advanced stages.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that levels of Bmi-1 expression may be a surrogate marker of poor prognosis and may become clinically useful as noninvasive diagnostic markers.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Size and sequence of specific Bmi-1 expression. Lanes 1 to 3 show serial dilution of the tumor cDNA used to generate standard curve (1:5, 1:25, and 1:125). Lanes 4 and 5 show Bmi-1 expression in the plasma of a breast cancer patient and in the plasma of a healthy control, respectively. bp, base pairs; WM, weight marker.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Differences between Bmi-1 expression levels in healthy controls and tumor samples. UBC, ubiquitin C.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Kaplan-Meier survival curves analyzed by stages for the influence of Bmi-1 presence in plasma on disease-free and overall survival.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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