Expression of Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway-related proteins in breast cancer and its clinical significance

AIM: To evaluate the expression of Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway-related proteins in breast cancer and the significance. METHODS: The patients with breast cancer (n=150) in our hospital from January 2015 to January 2017 were selected as study object. The tumor tissue samples of these patients were obtained from paraffin section of breast cancer by surgical resection with complete clinicopathological data. The corresponding paracancerous tissue sam-ples were taken from the non-tumor tissue samples from the above breast cancer patients, which were 0.5~1 cm away from the tumor tissue. The methods of real-time PCR and Western blot were performed to examine the expression of Wnt-1 and β-catenin at mRNA and protein levels. Human breat cancer MCF-7 cells were divided into 3 groups:control group (MCF-7 cells without treatment), agonist groupMCF-7 cells+Wnt3a (1 mg/L)] and antagonit groupMCF-7 cells+DKK1 (16 μmol/L)]. The expression of Wnt-1 and β-catenin at mRNA and protein levels was detected by real-time PCR and Western blot. RESULTS: Compared with the paracancerous tissues, the expression levels of Wnt-1 and β-catenin were higher in tumor tissues at mRNA and proteins levels (P<0.05). Notably, the positive expression rates of Wnt-1 and β-catenin were significantly higher in tumor tissues than that in the paracancerous tissues. Furthermore, Wnt-1 expression was associated with tumor metastasis (χ²=5.352, P=0.021), tumor stage (χ²=9.412, P=0.002) and tumor size (χ²=9.412, P=0.002). In addition, β-catenin expression was also associated with tumor metastasis (χ²=9.851, P=0.002) and tumor stage (χ²=5.661, P=0.017). Compared with control group, the expression of Wnt-1 and β-catenin at mRNA and protein levels in agonist group was increased (P<0.05),while that in antagonist group was decreased (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: The expression levels of Wnt-1 and β-catenin related with Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway are increased in the breast cancer, which are closely related to the malignant state of the tumor.