Detection and Significance of PNC in Breast Cancer Tissues

The PNC (perinucleolar compartment) associates with malignancy of various solid tumors. Our study was to detect the expression level of PNC in breast cancer tissues and analyze the clinical significance.

Immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence were used to detect the expression of PNC in breast cancer tissues, para-cancer tissues, and lymph nodes.

We used immunohistochemistry to detect PNC in paraffin tissues of breast cancer. PNC was expressed in 66.67% breast cancer tissues and 60.87% lymph node tissues, but not corresponding para-cancer tissues. PNC was not correlated with ER, PR, tumor size, and lymph node infiltration (all p > 0.05), but was correlated with TNM (p < 0.05). Immunofluorescence was used to detect PNC, 64.29% breast cancer tissues and 75% lymph node tissues were positive, but all adjacent tissues were negative. PNC was detected by immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence in 14 breast cancer tissues and para-cancer tissues simultaneously. Nine cases were positive by immunofluorescence and 6 cases were positive by immunohistochemistry, with a coincidence rate of 66.67%. PNC of para-cancer tissues were detected negative by both methods, and the coincidence rate was 100%.

The expression of PNC in breast cancer tissues was higher than that in para-cancer tissues. There was no significant correlation between PNC and breast cancer invasion and metastasis.