Elevated Expression of CD151 Gene in Estrogen Receptor and Progesterone Receptor Positive Breast Carcinoma

The  tetraspanin  gene,  CD151  is  involved  in various  tumour  cell  progression  and metastasis. Its expression is increased in high grade, estrogen receptor negative and c-erbB-2  positive  breast  cancer.  However,  the  biological  function  and  expression phenotype among different tumour status, estrogen receptor (ER) status, progesterone receptor (PR) status and c-erbB-2 expression in multi-ethnic Malaysian breast cancer patients  has  not been  well  investigated.  We  used  quantitative  real-time  reverse transcriptase  polymerase  chain  reaction  (qRT-PCR)  to  measure  the  CD151  gene expression  in  45  breast  cancers.  Our  preliminary  results  revealed  that  CD151 expression is significantly higher in ER positive and PR positive breast cancers at 95% and  99%  confidence  intervals,  respectively.  In  contrast,  there  is  no  significant correlation between CD151 expression and tumour grades or c-erbB-2 status at 95% confidence  interval  level.  Our  preliminary  findings  suggested  that  CD151  may  be involved in the estrogen responsive pathways. CD151 could be a potential prognostic marker  and  therapeutic  target  in  the  treatment  of  estrogen  dependent  breast  cancer patients.