Expression of ALEX1 in breast cancer and its clinical significance

AIM: To detect the expression of ALEX1 in the breast cancer tissues in order to verify whether ALEX1 has correlation with clinical pathological features in breast cancer.METHODS: Real-time PCR and immmunohistochemistry were applied to detect the expression of ALEX1 at mRNA and protein levels in the breast tissues. The statistical analysis were performed for determining the correlation with the level of ALEX1 and the clinical pathological features in breast cancer.RESULTS: The protein levels of ALEX1 in the breast cancer tissues were lower than that in the non-breast cancer tissues (P<0.01). The expression of ALEX1 had correlations with pathological grade, clinical stage, molecular type (P<0.05) but had no correlation with the patients' age, tumor size and tumor types in breast cancer. Furthermore, the result of real-time PCR showed that mRNA expression of ALEX1 was also significantly reduced in the breast cancer tissues (P<0.01).CONCLUSION: The expression of ALEX1 in the breast cancer tissues is lower than that in non-breast cancer tissues. The pathological grade and clinical stage in breast cancer are negatively correlated with the expression of ALEX1.