Prognostic Significance of cyclin D1, β-catenin, and MTA1 in Patients with Invasive Ductal Carcinoma of the Breast

Background To investigate markers for predicting breast cancer progression, we performed a candidate gene-based study that assessed expression change of three genes, cyclin D1, β-catenin , and metastasis-associated protein-1 ( MTA1 ), involving in aggressive phenotypes of cancerous cells, namely hyperproliferation, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, and global transcriptional regulation. Methods Specimens were from 150 enrolled female patients, with invasive ductal carcinoma, followed up for more than 10 years. mRNA expression of cyclin D1 , β-catenin , and MTA1 in cancerous and noncancerous cells microdissected from the primary tumor site was determined by quantitative real-time PCR. The relationship between mRNA expression levels of the genes and clinicopathologic features was assessed by statistical analysis. Disease-free and overall survival (DFS and OS) were analyzed by Kaplan–Meier analysis with log-rank test and a multivariate Cox regression model. Results Cyclin D1 was shown to be overexpressed in late-stage breast cancer (stage III/IV). Breast cancer with lymph node metastasis (LNM) showed significantly higher frequency of overexpressed cyclin D1 , β-catenin , and MTA1 ( P