Dataset Information

RANK and RANKL Expression in Tumors of Patients with Early Breast Cancer.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

The receptor activator of nuclear factor-κB (RANK) pathway was associated with the pathogenesis of breast cancer. Several studies attempted to link the RANK/RANKL pathway to prognosis; however, with inconsistent outcomes. We aimed to further contribute to the knowledge about RANK/RANKL as prognostic factors in breast cancer. Within this study, protein expression of RANK and its ligand, RANKL, in the tumor tissue was analyzed in association with disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in a study cohort of patients with early breast cancer.

Patients and methods

607 samples of female primary and early breast cancer patients from the Bavarian Breast Cancer Cases and Controls Study were analyzed to correlate the RANK and RANKL expression with DFS and OS. Therefore, expression was quantified using immunohistochemical staining of a tissue microarray. H-scores were determined with the cut-off value of 8.5 for RANK and 0 for RANKL expression, respectively.

Results

RANK and RANKL immunohistochemistry were assessed by H-score. Both biomarkers did not correlate (ρ = -0.04). According to molecular subtypes, triple-negative tumors and HER2-positive tumors showed a higher number of RANK-positive tumors (H-score ≥ 8.5), however, no subtype-specific expression of RANKL could be detected. Higher RANKL expression tended to correlate with a better prognosis. However, RANK and RANKL expression could not be identified as statistically significant prognostic factors within the study cohort.

Conclusions

Tumor-specific RANK and RANKL expressions are not applicable as prognostic factors for DFS and OS, but might be associated with subtype-specific breast cancer progression.

SUBMITTER: Behrens A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10764119 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

RANK and RANKL Expression in Tumors of Patients with Early Breast Cancer.

Behrens Annika A Wurmthaler Lena L Heindl Felix F Gass Paul P Häberle Lothar L Volz Bernhard B Hack Carolin C CC Emons Julius J Erber Ramona R Hartmann Arndt A Beckmann Matthias W MW Ruebner Matthias M Dougall William C WC Press Michael F MF Fasching Peter A PA Huebner Hanna H

Geburtshilfe und Frauenheilkunde 20231122 1

<h4>Introduction</h4>The receptor activator of nuclear factor-κB (RANK) pathway was associated with the pathogenesis of breast cancer. Several studies attempted to link the RANK/RANKL pathway to prognosis; however, with inconsistent outcomes. We aimed to further contribute to the knowledge about RANK/RANKL as prognostic factors in breast cancer. Within this study, protein expression of RANK and its ligand, RANKL, in the tumor tissue was analyzed in association with disease-free survival (DFS) an ...[more]

PMID: 38178900

Similar Datasets

Project description:RANKL is important in mammary gland development during pregnancy and mediates the initiation and progression of progesterone-induced breast cancer. No clinical data are available on the effect of pregnancy on RANK/RANKL expression in young breast cancer patients.We used our previously published dataset of 65 pregnant and 130 matched young breast cancer patients with full clinical, pathological, and survival information. 85% of patients had available transcriptomic data as well. RANK/RANKL expression by immunohistochemistry using H-score on the primary tumor and adjacent normal tissue was performed. We examined the difference in expression of RANK/RANKL between pregnant and non-pregnant patients and their association with clinicopathological features and prognosis. We also evaluated genes and pathways associated with RANK/RANKL expression on primary tumors.RANKL but not RANK expression was more prevalent in the pregnant group, both on the tumor and adjacent normal tissue, independent of other clinicopathological factors (both P <0.001). 18.7% of pregnant and 5.3% of non-pregnant patients had tumors showing ?10% of cells with 3+ RANKL expression. RANKL expression was significantly higher in progesterone receptor-positive, and luminal A-like tumors, with negative correlation with Ki-67 (all P <0.001). On the contrary, RANK expression was higher in triple negative tumors (P <0.001). Using false discovery rate <0.05, 151 and 1,207 genes were significantly correlated with tumor-expressed RANKL and RANK expression by immunohistochemistry, respectively. High RANKL expression within primary tumor was associated with pathways related to mammary gland development, bone resorption, T-cell proliferation and regulation of chemotaxis, while RANK expression was associated with immune response and proliferation pathways. At a median follow-up of 65 months, neither RANK nor RANKL expression within tumor was associated with disease free survival in pregnant or non-pregnant group.Pregnancy increases RANKL expression both in normal breast and primary tumors. These results could guide further development of RANKL-targeted therapy.

Dataset Information

RANK and RANKL Expression in Tumors of Patients with Early Breast Cancer.

Introduction

Patients and methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

RANK and RANKL Expression in Tumors of Patients with Early Breast Cancer.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets