Methods: We examined the expression of p27 and p-p27Ser10 using immunohistochemistry in 107 breast invasive ductal carcinomas and analyzed the relationship of these biomarkers and tumor characteristics.
Results: Of the 107 tumor samples, 38.3% (41 of 107) overexpressed p27 and 64.5% (69 of 107) overexpressed p-p27Ser10. Analysis of correlation with clinical characteristics showed that high expression level of p-p27Ser10 was linked to poor differentiation, advanced disease stage, and lymph node metastasis, whereas a contrary trend was observed for p27 (all P <0.05). In addition, the expression of p-p27Ser10 was significantly higher in malignant tumors than in adjacent tissues, while p27 showed the opposite trend. Also, there were different levels of p27 and p-p27Ser10 in different types of breast cancer.
Conclusion: p27 and p-p27Ser10 are involved in the development of invasive ductal carcinoma and are potential indicators to judge the degree of malignancy as well as recurrence and metastasis.
Keywords: breast cancer, p27, p-p27Ser10, Ki67, ERα, PR, Her2