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. 2017 Feb 24:10:1207-1216.
doi: 10.2147/OTT.S112165. eCollection 2017.

Toll-like receptor 4 as a predictor of clinical outcomes of estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer in Saudi women

Abdelhabib Semlali  1 , Maroua Jalouli  2 , Narasimha Reddy Parine  1 , Abdullah Al Amri  1 , Maha Arafah  3 , Abdulrahman Al Naeem  4 , Sanaa Abdullah Ajaj  5 , Mahmoud Rouabhia  6 , Mohammad Saud Alanazi  1
Affiliations

Toll-like receptor 4 as a predictor of clinical outcomes of estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer in Saudi women

Abdelhabib Semlali et al. Onco Targets Ther. .

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the association of the common polymorphisms of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR-4) with breast cancer development in the Saudi Arabian population. Four TLR-4 polymorphisms (rs2770150, rs10759931, rs10759932, and rs4986790) were studied using 127 breast cancer patients and 117 controls. Relative expression of TLR-4 protein in the breast tumor and the matched normal breast tissues was determined in a large cohort of 70 clinical breast samples in a tissue micro-array format by immunohistochemistry using a specific anti-TLR-4 antibody. Our results demonstrated an increase in TLR-4 expression in estrogen receptor (ER)-, postmenopausal breast cancer patients compared to normal. We also demonstrated that the G allele of single-nucleotide polymorphism rs10759931 was found to be significantly higher in frequency among patients (36.3%) compared to the control group (26.7%), suggesting that this polymorphism is strongly associated with the development of breast cancer in this ethnic population. In addition, the TLR-4 polymorphism rs2770150 was shown to be highly correlated with breast cancer in patients over 48 years of age. The TLR-4 polymorphism rs4986790 was also found to be associated with this malignancy in the ER- patient groups. Our results suggested firstly that the variation in TLR-4 gene expression may influence breast cancer development and secondly a closely linked association between TLR-4 gene polymorphism and ER status. Our study provides support for a better understanding of the implication of TLR-4 polymorphism in breast tumorigenesis and for its eventual use as a cancer biomarker.

Keywords: Saudi population; Toll-like receptor 4; breast cancer; estrogen receptor; innate immunity; single-nucleotide polymorphisms.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Immunohistochemical determination of TLR-4 protein expression in normal and breast cancer tissues. (A) Representative sections (×200) of positive immunostaining of TLR-4 protein expression in normal breast tissues (a and b) and ER− breast cancer tissues (c and d). The staining of samples from ER− premenopausal patients is illustrated in (a and c) and from ER− postmenopausal patients in (b and d). Tissues were immunostained using specific TLR-4 antibodies. (B) TLR-4 positive staining was estimated as follows: 0 point, no positive staining; 1 point, <20% positive staining; 2 points, 21%–50% positive staining; 3 points, 51%–75% positive staining; and 4 points, >75% positive staining. Abbreviations: TLR-4, Toll-like receptor 4; ER, estrogen receptor.
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