Cadherins E and P expression in the molecular types of breast cancer

The epithelial-mesenchymal transition is a process by which tumor cells lose their epithelial markers and migrate to distant organs. This process involves several cell adhesion proteins such as E-cadherin and P-cadherin. The present study was performed in 354 pacients diagnosed with breast infiltrating ductal carcinoma in the Oncology Institute "Dr. Miguel Perez Carrerno", Valencia, Venezuela. The expression of 22 molecules was analyzed by tissue micro-arrays and the results were compared with the molecular clases established by immunohistochemistry, according to the expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2 (HER2), and with the overall survival (OS). Based on the results of ER, PR and HER2 molecular classes according to the following percentages were established: Luminal A 42.4%, Luminal B 20.3%, 9% HER2 and 28.2% triple negative (TN). E-cadherin expression was observed conserved in most of the tumors of this series, 92.5% of cases. TN phenotype tumors showed a high percentage (41.7%) with absent or reduced expression. The P-cadherin was expressed in 40.5% of cases, although expressed in all classes; the proportion was significantly higher in cases TN. No significant prognostic value was observed when analyzing the overall five-year survival of patients with tumors with absent or reduced expression of E-cadherin. The P-cadherin expression had a negative relationship with the OS.