Abstract:
Background: Glutathione S-transferase gene class P1 (GSTP1) encodes glutathione S-transferase P1 (GSTP1) that catalyses detoxifying metabolism of glutathione. The lack of GSTP1 expression is linked to carcinogenesis and is related to promoter methylation. The previous studies of GSTP1 hypermethylation in breast cancer revealed diverse results and suspicious correlation with GSTP1 expression.
Objective: To investigate the correlation between promoter methylation and protein expression of GSTP1 in breast cancer.
Methods: One hundred breast cancer samples were used. The study of promoter methylation employed methylation specific assay (MSP) on fresh tissues while the assessment of protein expression was done with immunohistochemistry (IHC) on formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissues. The results were correlated each other and with clinicopathologic parameters using Chi Square statistics.
Results: The rate of hypermethylation of GSTP1 was 28%. Of which, 8 cases showed double-band signals methylation and unmethylation bands. This might be caused by heterozygous or contaminant factors. Another one case was found in a non-invasive carcinoma. Of the left 19 cases with hypermethylation status, 12.5% revealed protein expressions. The correlation of the results between MSP and IHC methods yielding the Chi Square test, p-value= 0.04. The correlations with clinicopathological parameters showed that progesterone receptor correlated with MSP status (p-value= 0.05) and estrogen receptor correlated with IHC status (p-value= 0.001). The other parameters tumor size, tumor grade, lymph node status, HER2-IHC score, Ki67 index were not statistically correlated.
Conclusion: The results between hypermethylation of GSTP1 by MSP and GSTP1 expression by IHC are correlated, however, there might be technical problems regarding MSP that needs further investigation.