HIF-1α, MMP-1 & MMP-9: A prognostic tool for early breast cancer detection

Breast cancer is one of the most malignant cancers responsible for women death worldwide. Approximately half of them will eventually develop metastases. With early detection, chances of cure increases with a long term survival over 95%. Tumor cells secrete chemotactic factors capable of attracting monocytes to the site of inflammation. Once recruited, monocytes become under direct influence of malignant cells and differentiate into Tumor-Associated Macrophages able to secrete different pro-angiogenic factors, an important extracellular matrix change that enables tumor growth. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation between expression levels of selected biomolecules: HIF-1α, MMP-1, MMP-9 and cancer progression. Breast biopsies were collected from patients with four different grades of severity (Grade 0 - Grade 3). cDNA’s was synthetized and quantified using Q-RT-PCR. Correlation between the expression level of these biomolecules and cancer progression / staging was done using statistical tests. Our results showed that expression levels of HIF-1α were significantly higher in G1 compared to G0; MMP-1 and MMP-9 were highly expressed at more advanced stages. As sensitivity/specificity statistical test confirmed, a sequential test is recommended in which HIF-1α is used as a marker for early stages of breast cancer, MMP-1 for determining G2 and G3 stages, and MMP-9 to confirm G3 staging.