Wt1 and survivin gene expression product levels and their relationship with the antiapoptotic activities in breast cancer

Introduction. Breast cancer affects mainly women and the leading cause of women mortality in many countries. The breast cancer is many ways sporadic and the hereditary types breast cancer constitutes about 20% in many populations. The molecular basis of breast cancer invasion and metastasis needed to be delineated for understanding why the apoptosis lacking behind the proliferation that increase the mortality and poor quality of life in affected women. Therefore this study was designed as a part of ongoing project to investigate the expression level of survivin and WT1 proteins that are the inhibitor of the apoptosis. Material and methods. 54 specimens from the tumors and otherwise normal tissue of the neighboring healthy tissues from the archived paraffin embedded samples were cut, fixed and immunostained with the survivin and WT1 antibodies and evaluated by the pathologists. Parameters included ages, histopathologic type, menopausal status and staging. Results. Majority of the patients had invasive ductal carcinoma regardless of age and pre and postmenopausal state. Both survivin and WT1 proteins were detected with quite variable expressional levels which made difficult to correlate with the invasiveness of breast cancer. Conclusion. Tissues at large showed the presence of survivin and WT1 proteins. Survivin expressions were largely nuclear while WT1 expressions were cytoplasmic which suggest that they both are not involved in invasiveness of breast cancer in the samples that were studied. In order to support this conclusion immunohistochemical staining results should be evaluated together with the western blot analysis.