Grade Dependent Expression of Growth Factor Receptors and Signaling Molecules in Breast Cancer*

Copyright © 2013 Chellakkan Selvanesan Benson et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons At-tribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is prop-erly cited. Growth factor signaling plays a key role in the growth and development of breast. Aberrant expression and activation of growth factors like insulin like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) and their downstream sig-naling has been implicated in breast cancer. The deregulation of growth factor signaling is associated with increased proliferation and cell survival, decreased apoptosis, invasion, angiogenesis and metastasis. The aim of the present study is to survey the different signaling molecules involved in the IGF and EGF signaling pathways, and to find if there are any relationship between breast cancer and their levels and activation. Thirty-nine samples of breast cancer tissues (24 Grade II and 15 Grade III tumours) and sixteen normal breast tissue samples were collected. The expression of the re-ceptors and signaling molecules were investigated using Western blot. IGF-IRβ, AR, pAkt, IKK-α and p38 are upregu-lated in cancer tissues in a grade depended manner. Further, Akt and β-catenin were also upregulated in cancer samples. Correlation analysis of signaling molecules revealed a disruption in their expression in cancer tissues. The present study shows that various signaling molecules are upregulated or activated in cancer tissues involving IGF-IR and Akt path