Abstract
Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of the nuclear receptor PPARγ, together withthat of the cyclooxygenases Cox-1 and Cox-2, in breast cancer (BC) tissues and to correlate the data with several clinicobiologicalparameters including patient survival.Methods: In a well characterized cohort of 308 primary BC, PPARγ, Cox-1 and Cox-2 cytoplasmic and nuclear expressionwere evaluated by immunohistochemistry. Correlations with clinicopathological and aggressiveness featureswere analyzed, as well as survival using Kaplan–Meier analysis.Results: PPARγ was expressed in almost 58% of the samples with a predominant cytoplasmic location. Cox-1 andCox-2 were exclusively cytoplasmic. Cytoplasmic PPARγ was inversely correlated with nuclear PPARγ and ER expression,but positively with Cox-1, Cox-2, and other high-risk markers of BC, e.g. HER2, CD133, and N-cadherin. Overallsurvival analysis demonstrated that cytoplasmic PPARγ had a strong correlation with poor survival in the wholecohort, and even stronger in the subgroup of patients with no Cox-1 expression where cytoplasmic PPARγ expressionappeared as an independent marker of poor prognosis. In support of this cross-talk between PPARγ and Cox-1, wefound that Cox-1 became a marker of good prognosis only when cytoplasmic PPARγ was expressed at high levels.Conclusion: Altogether, these data suggest that the relative expression of cytoplasmic PPARγ and Cox-1 may play animportant role in oncogenesis and could be defined as a potential prognosis marker to identify specific high risk BCsubgroups.