Peripheral Benzodiazepine Receptor in Human Breast Cancer
Abstract
In this IDEA Award we proposed to test the hypothesis that the peripheral-type benzodiazepine receptor (PBR) may be used as a marker for the detection and diagnosis of breast tumors and that the regulation of PBR expression/function may eventually help in the treatment of breast cancer. In this progress report, we present evidence that elevated PBR expression in breast, colon-rectum and prostate tissues is associated with tumor progression and we propose that PBR overexpression could serve as a novel prognostic indicator of an aggressive phenotype in breast, colorectal and prostate cancers. Moreover, we demonstrated that expression of PBR in non-aggressive breast cancer tumor cells results in increased cell proliferation and that the ability of the aggressive, hormone-independent, MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells to form tumors in vivo may depend on the amount of PBR present in these cells. In addition, we report the surprising finding that the increase in PBR expression in more aggressive cancers is the result of both gene amplification and increased gene transcription/translation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA405505
Entities
People
- Vassilios Papadopoulos
Organizations
- Georgetown University