High-risk human papillomavirus infections in breast cancer in Syrian women and their association with Id-1 expression: a tissue microarray study

Br J Cancer. 2008 Aug 5;99(3):404-7. doi: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6604503. Epub 2008 Jul 22.

Abstract

High-risk human papillomaviruses (HPVs) could be important risk factors for breast carcinogenesis and metastasis. Based on this hypothesis, we recently studied the effect of E6/E7 onco-proteins of high-risk HPV type 16 in two non-invasive human breast cancer cell lines, BT20 and MCF7; we reported that E6/E7 converts these cell lines to invasive cells. This is accompanied by an overexpression of Id-1, which is an important regulator of breast metastasis. In this investigation, we examined the presence of high-risk HPVs (16, 18, 31, 33 and 35) and the expression of their E6 onco-protein as well as their correlation with Id-1 gene expression, using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and tissue microarray (TMA) analysis, respectively, in a cohort of 113 Syrian breast cancer patients. We found that high-risk HPV types 16, 18, 31, 33 and 35 are present in 8.84, 9.73, 7.07, 55.75 and 37.16% of our samples, respectively, which represent invasive breast cancers. Overall, 69 (61.06%) of the 113 samples are HPV positive; among these specimens 24 tissues (34.78%) are coinfected with more than one HPV type. Furthermore, we report that the expression of the E6 onco-protein of these high-risk HPVs is correlated with Id-1 overexpression in the majority of invasive breast cancer tissue samples. Our data suggest that high-risk HPV infections are associated with human breast cancer progression in Syrian women.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Alphapapillomavirus / genetics
  • Alphapapillomavirus / isolation & purification*
  • Base Sequence
  • Breast Neoplasms / pathology*
  • Breast Neoplasms / virology*
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cohort Studies
  • DNA Primers
  • Female
  • Genes, Viral
  • Humans
  • Immunohistochemistry
  • Inhibitor of Differentiation Protein 1 / biosynthesis*
  • Middle Aged
  • Neoplasm Metastasis
  • Oncogene Proteins, Viral / genetics
  • Papillomavirus Infections / complications*
  • Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Syria / epidemiology
  • Tissue Array Analysis

Substances

  • DNA Primers
  • ID1 protein, human
  • Inhibitor of Differentiation Protein 1
  • Oncogene Proteins, Viral