Expression of chemerin correlates with a poor prognosis in female breast cancer patients

• Published in: Breast cancer targets and therapy 2018-01, Vol.10, p.169-176
• Main Authors: El-Sagheer, Ghada, Gayyed, Mariana, Ahmad, Asmaa, Abd El-Fattah, Aliaa, Mohamed, Manar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: adipocyte development; Adipocytes; Analysis; Angiogenesis; Body mass index; Breast cancer; Cancer metastasis; Cancer patients; Cancer research; chemerin expression; Development and progression; Disease; Esophagus; Estrogens; Family medical history; Gene expression; Genetic aspects; Health aspects; Immunohistochemistry; Inflammation; Insulin; Insulin-like growth factors; Internal medicine; Ligands; Lung cancer; Medical research; Medicine; Melanoma; Metabolic syndrome; Obesity; Original Research; Phenols (Class of compounds); Progesterone; Prognosis; Sex hormones; Tumor necrosis factor-TNF; Tumors; Women's health
• ISSN: 1179-1314; 1179-1314
• DOI: 10.2147/BCTT.S178181

Chemerin was reported to regulate adipogenesis, metabolism, and immunity. But, its relation to cancer remains controversial. In breast cancer, chemerin expression has only been studied in serum, however, its expression in tissue, to our knowledge, has not been studied. The aim of this study was to investigate chemerin expression in breast cancer tissue in comparison to the adjacent normal tissue, and to assess its relationship to disease prognosis. We examined chemerin expression in tissue with immunohistochemistry and analyzed the association of chemerin expression with the patients' clinical and pathological characteristics to determine its role as a predictor of the disease and its relation to disease prognosis. We detected a significantly higher expression of chemerin in the malignant vs the non-cancerous tissue specimens in 30/53, (56%) patients, ( =0.001). Moreover, its expression was significantly higher in the metastatic lymph nodes in comparison to the tumor tissues, ( =0.01). Chemerin expression was significantly correlated with weight ( =0.256, =0.04), body mass index ( =0.233, =0.03), tumor size ( =0.235, =0.03), lymph node metastasis ( =0.265, =0.045), distant metastasis ( =0.267, =0.02), and tumor grading, ( =0.421, =0.004), while it was inversely significantly correlated with estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor expression in malignant breast tissues ( =0.038, =-0.437, and =0.047, =-0.316), respectively. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for chemerin as a predictor of breast cancer was 0.82, (