Protein tyrosine phosphatase activity as a diagnostic parameter in breast cancer

Cellular phosphotyrosine levels are regulated by the balance between protein tyrosine kinases (PTKs) and protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs). It is supposed that this balance is disturbed in tumour cells, making the increased or altered activity of PTKs and PTPs likely hallmarks of tumour tissues. Indeed it could be shown that the PTK activity was increased in breast cancer in correlation with prognosis (Hennipman et al., Cancer Res. 49, 516-522, 1989). In the present report we measured the PTP activities in breast cancer and normal breast tissues. An increase of approximately three- to four-fold was measured in the cytosolic tumour fractions compared to normal, whereas the solubilized membrane fraction PTP activity showed an increase in tumours of approximately 1.5-fold. Remarkably, the membrane PTP activity correlated with the presence of tumour positive axillary lymph nodes (p = 0.004), whereas the cytosolic PTP activity correlated with the mitotic index, a higher PTP activity occurring when the mitotic index was higher than 10 (p = 0.0004). These results indicate the membrane PTP activity may be considered as an index of metastatic potential, whereas cytosolic PTP activity may be a measure of the growth capacity of the tumour. The increase of PTP activity in breast cancers was confirmed by enzyme-histochemical studies. In frozen sections of tumours a strong to moderate activity was found in both tumour cells and interstitial cells. In the interstitium membrane activity was most pronounced, whereas in the tumour cells diffuse staining of the cytoplasm together with a clear membrane staining was demonstrated. Immunoblotting with anti-phosphotyrosine antibodies also reveals differences between the tumours and normal tissues, confirming the disturbance of the balance between protein tyrosyl phosphorylation and dephosphorylation in the tumour cells.