Expression of biliary glycoprotein (CD66a) in normal and malignant breast epithelial cells

Biliary glycoprotein (BGP, CD66a, or C-CAM-1) is a cell adhesion glycoprotein expressed in colon, liver, and hematopoietic tissues. Four major isoforms (a-d) of BGP are expressed in most epithelial tissues by alternative mRNA splicing from a single gene. Since BGP is down regulated in colon cancer and in premalignant colonic adenomas, it has been of interest to study its expression in other tumors. Using immunohistochemistry with a BGP specific antibody, and mRNA analysis by in situ hybridization, RNase protection, and RT-PCR, we show here that BGP is expressed to the same extent in both normal and malignant breast, demonstrating that BGP is not down regulated in breast cancer. In normal breast, BGP expression is confined to the apical surface of ductal and lobular epithelial cells, while in invasive carcinoma of the breast, BGP is expressed throughout the cytoplasm. In situ hybridization shows a specific pattern of BGP expression in both normal and malignant breast epithelium. RNase protection analysis confirms the immunohistochemistry results and shows no quantitative differences between normal and malignant breast. RT-PCR analysis agrees with these results and shows that only 3 of the 4 major isoforms (a, c, d) of BGP are expressed in normal and malignant breast. Since recent studies by Turbide et al (Cancer Res 57: 2781-2788, 1997) have shown that the ratio of murine BGP isoforms may affect tumor suppression in colonic cancer, it is proposed here that the isoform difference between human breast and colon may account for the observed lack of BGP down-regulation in breast vs colon cancer.