RESEARCH ARTICLE


”BIK/NBK Gene Expression as a Possible Marker of Circulating Breast Cancer Cells in Blood“



E. Lopez-Munoz*, a, N. Garcia-Hernandeza, R. I. Penaloza-Espinosaa, M. E. Gomez-Del Torob, G. Zarco-Espinosab, S. Barroso-Bravob, F. Salamanca-Gomeza, D. J. Arenas-Arandaa
a Unidad de Investigación Médica en Genética Humana, Hospital de Pediatría, Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, México
b Servicio de Tumores de mama, Hospital de Oncología, Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, México

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2011
Volume: 4
First Page: 8
Last Page: 14
Publisher ID: TOBIOMJ-4-8
DOI: 10.2174/1875318301104010008

Article History:

Received Date: 28/06/2011
Revision Received Date: 18/08/2011
Acceptance Date: 25/08/2011
Electronic publication date: 14/10/2011
Collection year: 2011

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Creative Commons License
© 2011 Lopez-Munoz et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Laboratorio de Genética Molecular, Unidad de Investigación Médica en Genética Humana, Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, México, D.F. Av. Cuauhtémoc 330, Col. Doctores, Del. Cuauhtémoc, CP 06720, D.F., México; Tel: +52(55) 56276941; Fax: +52(55) 55885174; E-mail: astridkaryme2001@yahoo.com.mx


Abstract

The detection of circulating breast cancer cells in blood could be of special interest as an indicator of diagnosis and prognosis, and for the selection of treatment. In a previous report, our research group determined gene expression profiles in samples of breast cancer tissue, identifying over-expression of the BIK/NBK mRNA gene in 90% of the analyzed samples. In this paper, we analyze the BIK/NBK gene expression as a possible biomarker of circulating breast cancer cells in blood. We demonstrate that the BIK/NBK gene expression is not a significant biomarker in the detection of circulating breast cancer cells in the blood of women with breast cancer. Several studies have evaluated the regulation of apoptosis by estrogens in breast cancer cells, demonstrating the importance of BIK/NBK protein, in estrogen-regulated breast cancer cell apoptosis, which suggests that the regulation of its expression may be an important therapeutic target or strategy in the management of cancer, and, although we did not find statistically significant differences among the patient groups to demonstrate that BIK/NBK gene expression is a biomarker of circulating breast cancer cells in blood, we consider it necessary to continue the study of this gene in breast cancer tissue and its role in the development and progression of breast cancer, its prognostic value, and its potential use as therapeutic target.

Keywords: BIK/NBK, circulating breast cancer cells, biomarker.