Cytoplasmic staining of c-erbB-2 is not associated with the presence of detectable c-erbB-2 mRNA in breast cancer specimens
✍ Scribed by Susan L. Taylor; Angela Platt-Higgins; Philip S. Rudland; John H. R. Winstanley; Roger Barraclough
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- French
- Weight
- 223 KB
- Volume
- 76
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0020-7136
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✦ Synopsis
The cell-surface receptor tyrosine kinase protein c-erbB-2 is immunocytochemically detected as membrane staining on the surface of cancer cells in 20-30% of cases of breast cancer, and its presence has been associated with poor prognosis for the patient. However, there have been numerous reports of immunocytochemical staining for c-erbB-2 solely in the cytoplasm of some normal and tumour specimens with frequently used anti-sera, and the presence of such staining has been difficult to interpret. It is not known for certain that cytoplasmic c-erbB-2 staining is an artefact of the immunocytochemical procedures used. Thus, mRNA for c-erbB-2 has been quantified in tumours exhibiting only cytoplasmic staining or varying levels of membrane staining using a sensitive, competitive PCR method. Whereas abundant levels of c-erbB-2 mRNA are found in tumours exhibiting membrane staining for c-erbB-2 and these levels correlate with the percentage of tumour cells showing membranous staining for c-erbB-2, the level of c-erbB-2 mRNA in tumours displaying only cytoplasmic staining is no higher than in c-erbB-2-negative specimens.