About this Medicine article

**Expression of β‐catenin in normal breast tissue and breast carcinoma: a comparative study with epithelial cadherin and α‐catenin** by R. HASHIZUME; H. Koizumi; A. IHARA; T. OHTA; T. UCHIKOSHI is a Medicine article available to read on EtoBox.

Expression of β‐catenin was investigated in normal breast tissue and 66 breast carcinomas in conjunction with expression of epithelial cadherin (E‐CD) and α‐catenin. In normal mammary ducts and acini, intense β‐catenin immunoreactivity was present at the basolateral surfaces of luminal epithelium and weak immunoreactivity was observed at the lateral borders of myoepithelial cells. No β‐catenin was revealed at the myoepithelial basal surface. The intercellular expression of β‐catenin, as well as of E‐CD and α‐catenin, was also observed in carcinoma tissues with varying staining intensity. Almost all of 10 intraductal carcinomas and approximately 70% of 41 invasive ductal carcinomas expressed the three molecules at the same level as in normal glands, whereas approximately 80% of 13 invasive lobular carcinomas showed severe deficiency of them. Two lobular carcinomas __in situ__ showed complete absence of all of the proteins. Some of these findings were confirmed biochemically by immunoblotting analysis. In invasive ductal carcinomas, α‐catenin was reduced more frequently in diffuse than in solid type tumours, whereas the level of expression of β‐catenin and E‐CD was unchanged between

Author

R. HASHIZUME; H. Koizumi; A. IHARA; T. OHTA; T. UCHIKOSHI

Publisher

John Wiley and Sons; Wiley (Blackwell Publishing); Blackwell Publishing Inc.; Wiley (ISSN 0309-0167)

Published

1996

Language

EN

Field

Medicine (Health Sciences)