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Updated: Mar 19, 2026
Performing Data Mining And Integrative Analysis Of Biomarker in Breast Cancer Using Multiple Publicly Accessible Databases
Published on: May 17, 2019
[p16INK4a protein is a specific molecular biomarker of breast cancer]
Jun Yang1, Xiao-Zhong Huang, Rui Guo
11Department of Pathology, Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, 2National Local Joint Engineering Research Center of Biological Diagnosis and Biotherapy, Xi'an 710004, China.
Objective:
To investigate the expression of p16INK4a protein in breast cancer and analyze its clinical significance.
Methods:
A total of 132 surgical specimens of primary breast cancer obtained between 2014 and 2015 were examined for expressions of ER, PR, CK5/6, Her-2 and p16INK4a proteins using immunohistochemistry.
Results:
The breast cancer samples were classified into 5 molecular subtypes, namely Luminal A (58 cases), Luminal B (32 cases), Her-2-positive (21 cases), basal-like (12 cases) and normal-like (9 cases) types. p16INK4a expression was negative in 7/132 (5.30%) cases, weakly positive in 15/132 (11.36%) cases, positive in 40/132 (30.30%) cases, and strongly positive in 70/132 (53.03%) cases. When categorizing negative and weakly positive cases into negative group and the positive and strongly positive cases into positive group, the total negative and positive expression rates of p16INK4a were 16.67% (22/132) and 83.33% (110/132) in the carcinoma tissues. Statistical analysis showed the expression intensity of p16INK4a differed significantly between the age groups (P<0.05) but was not significantly correlated with ER, PR, Her-2, molecular subtypes or metastasis of the tumors.
Conclusion:
The compensatory high expression of p16INK4a is the main mechanism of cell cycle deregulation in invasive breast cancer and can be an important specific molecular marker for invasive breast cancer.
