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Protein expression of B-cell lymphoma gene 6 (BCL-6) in invasive breast cancer is associated with cyclin D1 and hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α)

Oncogene volume 22, pages 8948–8951 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

B-cell lymphoma gene (BCL-6) upregulation contributes to immortalization of mouse embryo fibroblast and primary B cells via upregulation of cyclin D1. As cyclin D1 overexpression is a common phenomenon in different cancers, BCL-6 protein overexpression may not be restricted to lymphomas. In this study, expression of BCL-6 was investigated by immunohistochemistry on paraffin-embedded specimens from 150 breast cancer patients and 10 specimens of normal breast tissue. The results showed BCL-6 overexpression (⩾10% of cells) in 24/150 (16%) breast cancer patients, whereas in normal breast low expression (<1%) of BCL-6 was observed. In linear regression analysis BCL-6 expression was associated with cyclin D1 (r=0.197, P=0.016). Further, in χ2 analyses, BCL-6-positivity was associated with overexpression of p53 (P=0.016), and hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (P<0.001). Involvement of BCL-6 in breast carcinogenesis is further underscored by comparative genomic hybridization analysis that showed gains at the BCL-6 locus (3q27) in 14/86 (16%) breast cancer tissues. The cases with amplification in BCL-6 showed an increased (25%) incidence of BCL-6 protein overexpression. Thus, this study is the first to show that BCL-6 oncogene activation plays a role in cancers other than lymphomas.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr Mehdi Jiwa from the Medical Center Alkmaar for providing tissue material of patients for CGH and BCL-6 staining. This work was supported by generous research support from the AEGON International Scholarship in Oncology (RB, PvdG, AEG, IH, AS), and in part by the KWF Grant 03-2825 (MAJAH).

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  1. Department of Pathology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Reinhard Bos, Paul J van Diest, Petra van der Groep, Astrid E Greijer, Mario A J A Hermsen, Ingrid Heijnen, Gerrit A Meijer & Avi Shvarts

  2. Department of Medical Oncology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Petra van der Groep, Astrid E Greijer, Ingrid Heijnen, Herbert M Pinedo, Elsken van der Wall & Avi Shvarts

  3. Department of Pathology, SiR Hospital, Stavanger, Norway

    Jan P A Baak

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Bos, R., Diest, P., Groep, P. et al. Protein expression of B-cell lymphoma gene 6 (BCL-6) in invasive breast cancer is associated with cyclin D1 and hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α). Oncogene 22, 8948–8951 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1206995

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