Vascular expression of E-selectin is increased in estrogen-receptor- negative breast cancer: A role for tumor-cell-secreted interleukin-1α

Mai Nguyen, Christopher L. Corless, Birgit M. Kräling, Chanh Tran, Tom Atha, Joyce Bischoff, Sanford H. Barsky

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

69 Scopus citations

Abstract

Angiogenesis plays an important role in breast cancer growth and metastasis. Multiple adhesion molecules have been shown to perform critical functions in the process of angiogenesis. In this study, we analyzed 15 benign and 22 malignant estrogen-receptor-negative and estrogen-receptor- positive breast specimens for the presence of the endothelial cell adhesion molecules E-selectin and P-selectin. We found that E-selectin's expression was increased in the malignant breast tumors compared with their benign counterparts (23.86% of blood vessels versus 2.479%; P = 0.0005). Furthermore, E-selectin staining was found to be significantly increased in the estrogen-receptor-negative carcinomas compared with the estrogen- receptor-positive ones (P = 0.005). In vitro findings strongly correlated with the in vivo findings and showed a higher degree of E-selectin induction in endothelial cells ex posed to conditioned media from estrogen-receptor- negative breast cancer cell lines than from estrogen-receptor-positive ones. The degree of E-selectin induction correlated with the amount of interleukin- 1α in the tumor-conditioned media. Neutralizing antibodies to interleukin- 1α significantly inhibited the E-selectin expression in endothelial cells exposed to tumor-conditioned media. The results indicate that the endothelial E-selectin expression during angiogenesis is related to breast carcinoma progression in vivo and that this component of angiogenesis may be due directly to tumor-cell-secreted interleukin-1α.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1307-1314
Number of pages8
JournalAmerican Journal of Pathology
Volume150
Issue number4
StatePublished - 1997
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Pathology and Forensic Medicine

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