Increased tumor cell expression of Axl is a marker of aggressive features in breast cancer among African women

Axl, a receptor tyrosine kinase belonging to the Tyro/Axl/Mer (TAM) family, has been shown to be overexpressed in breast cancer with poor outcome. Moreover, Axl was associated with a basal‐like phenotype (BLP) in these tumors. Our aim was to investigate Axl expression in breast cancers from an African population since these tumors are known to be aggressive and have a high frequency of the basal‐like phenotype. We studied 170 paraffin‐embedded breast carcinoma cases by tissue microarrays and immunohistochemical methods. In total, 128 tumor cases (75%) had strong Axl expression and 42 cases (25%) had weak or negative staining. Strong expression of Axl was associated with high tumor grade (p