Study of sFRP1 and β-catenin of Wnt signaling pathway in triple negative breast cancer and their correlation with clinicopathologic outcomes.

• Main Author: Seah, Cindy Chiou Peng.
• Other Authors: School of Biological Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/44277
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In breast cancer, the correlation of the activation of wnt signaling pathway with clinical outcome and the means resulting in its stimulation have remained as controversial issues. Moreover, triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) tends to have a poorer prognosis. A cohort of 109 representative TNBC cases was retrieved to further study the wnt signaling pathway in TNBC by determining the expression profiles of secreted Frizzled-related protein 1 (sFRP1) and β-catenin using immunohistochemistry, and to identify the association of these protein expressions with clinicopathological characteristics and survival data and their prognostic significance, if any, in TNBC. In the survival analysis, loss of sFRP1 expression (75% of cases) revealed a trend for a shorter overall survival and disease-free survival, however were not statistically significant (p = 0.19 and p = 0.121 respectively). A lack of relation to survival was seen on the β-catenin expression (63% of cases). Expression of sFRP1 revealed a direct correlation with the age of the patients (p = 0.014) and the growth pattern of the tumors (p = 0.013). However, other parameters did not show statistically significant correlation with sFRP1 and β-catenin expression. These results suggest a potential prognostic value of sFRP1 and β-catenin in TNBC but further analysis is needed.