Heparanase: a potential marker of worse prognosis in estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer

  • Tamar Zahavi
  • , Mali Salmon-Divon
  • , Roberto Salgado
  • , Michael Elkin
  • , Esther Hermano
  • , Ariel M. Rubinstein
  • , Prudence A. Francis
  • , Angelo Di Leo
  • , Giuseppe Viale
  • , Evandro de Azambuja
  • , Lieveke Ameye
  • , Christos Sotiriou
  • , Asher Salmon
  • , Nataly Kravchenko-Balasha
  • , Amir Sonnenblick*
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

Heparanase promotes tumor growth in breast tumors. We now evaluated heparanase protein and gene-expression status and investigated its impact on disease-free survival in order to gain better insight into the role of heparanase in ER-positive (ER+) breast cancer prognosis and to clarify its role in cell survival following chemotherapy. Using pooled analysis of gene-expression data, we found that heparanase was associated with a worse prognosis in estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) tumors (log-rank p < 10−10) and predictive to chemotherapy resistance (interaction p = 0.0001) but not hormonal therapy (Interaction p = 0.62). These results were confirmed by analysis of data from a phase III, prospective randomized trial which showed that heparanase protein expression is associated with increased risk of recurrence in ER+ breast tumors (log-rank p = 0.004). In vitro experiments showed that heparanase promoted tumor progression and increased cell viability via epithelial–mesenchymal transition, stemness, and anti-apoptosis pathways in luminal breast cancer. Taken together, our results demonstrated that heparanase is associated with worse outcomes and increased cell viability in ER+ BC.

Original languageEnglish
Article number67
Journalnpj Breast Cancer
Volume7
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 28 May 2021

Bibliographical note

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© 2021, The Author(s).

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