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Evidence for a pro-apoptotic function of RACK1 in human breast cancer

Oncogene volume 29, page 5651 (2010)Cite this article

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We have read with great interest the recent article by Mamidipudi and Cartwright (2009), in which the authors showed that RACK1 induced apoptosis of human colon cells by inhibiting the expression of anti-apoptotic pathways and Src activity, thus leading to death of colon cancer cells.

We have recently conducted an analysis of RACK1 messenger RNA (mRNA) expression in 127 human breast cancer and 33 non-cancerous breast tissue specimens. The study was carried out using reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction following RNA extraction from frozen samples. The mRNA copy numbers for RACK1 were normalized against the epithelial marker CK19 as previously described (Al Sarakbi et al., 2009) in order to adjust for epithelial cellularity in the specimens examined. We observed that RACK1 expression levels were higher in the normal breast tissue compared with the cancer specimens (mean levels were 136 vs 32 in paired samples, P=0.44). Furthermore, RACK1 mRNA levels were significantly lower in TNM3 tumours compared with TNM1 tumours (0.08 vs 33, P=0.04). After a median follow-up of 10 years, high levels of RACK1 mRNA expression were associated with a good clinical outcome. The mean level of expression in patients who remained disease-free was 36 compared with 2.4 in those who had systemic relapse (P=0.042) or those who had local recurrence (mean=3.86, P=0.05).

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. London Breast Institute, The Princess Grace Hospital, London, UK

    S Al-Reefy, H Osman, W Jiang & K Mokbel

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  1. S Al-Reefy
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  2. H Osman
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  3. W Jiang
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  4. K Mokbel
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Correspondence to S Al-Reefy.

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Al-Reefy, S., Osman, H., Jiang, W. et al. Evidence for a pro-apoptotic function of RACK1 in human breast cancer. Oncogene 29, 5651 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2010.291

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