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Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology Advance Access originally published online on June 9, 2006
Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology 2006 36(6):357-363; doi:10.1093/jjco/hyl038
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© 2006 Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research

Low Expression of the Snail Gene is a Good Prognostic Factor in Node-Negative Invasive Ductal Carcinomas

Tatsuya Toyama1,2, Zhenhuan Zhang2, Hirotaka Iwase2, Hiroko Yamashita2, Yoshiaki Ando2, Maho Hamaguchi2, Mitsuhiro Mizutani1, Naoto Kondo1, Takashi Fujita1, Yoshitaka Fujii2 and Hiroji Iwata1

1 Department of Breast Oncology, Aichi Cancer Center Hospital, Nagoya and 2 Department of Oncology, Immunology and Surgery, Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Nagoya, Japan

For reprints and all correspondence: Tatsuya Toyama, Department of Oncology, Immunology and Surgery, Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, 1 Kawasumi, Mizuho-cho, Mizuho-ku, Nagoya 467-8601, Japan. E-mail: toyamat-ncu{at}umin.ac.jp

Received September 4, 2005; accepted March 22, 2006

Background: While Snail is a zinc-finger transcription factor that triggers the epithelial-mesenchymal transition, it has also been reported to be indirectly regulated by estrogen receptor {alpha} (ER{alpha}) and to be involved in the transcriptional repression of the aromatase gene. The aim of the present study was to examine the role of Snail expression in node-negative invasive ductal carcinomas.

Methods: We analyzed Snail mRNA expression levels in 86 node-negative invasive ductal carcinomas by real-time quantitative RT–PCR and studied whether Snail mRNA expression correlates with clinicopathological factors.

Results: No correlation was found between Snail mRNA expression and ER{alpha} protein expression levels. However, we observed that none of the 34 patients showing low Snail mRNA expression developed distant metastasis while 6 of 52 (12%) showing high expression of Snail mRNA did. The level of Snail mRNA expression was not found to be significantly correlated with clinicopathological factors. No inverse correlation was found between the Snail and aromatase mRNA expression levels in our series.

Conclusion: Our data show that low expression of Snail mRNA is a good prognostic factor in node-negative invasive ductal carcinomas. Snail expression is suggested to be involved in distant metastasis in node-negative invasive ductal carcinomas.

Key Words: Snail • estrogen receptor • E-cadherin • breast cancer • aromatase


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