Human leukocyte antigen-G (HLA-G) polymorphism and expression in breast cancer patients

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 9; no. 5; p. e98284
• Main Authors: Jeong, Seri, Park, Seho, Park, Byeong-Woo, Park, Younhee, Kwon, Oh-Joong, Kim, Hyon-Suk
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 28.05.2014; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Analysis; Antigens; Apoptosis; Area Under Curve; Base Sequence; Biology and Life Sciences; Breast cancer; Breast Neoplasms - genetics; Breast Neoplasms - metabolism; Cancer; Cancer patients; Carcinogenesis; Carcinogens; Care and treatment; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Diagnostic systems; DNA; DNA Primers - genetics; DNA sequencing; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; Enzymes; Esophagus; Female; Gene expression; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic - genetics; Gene sequencing; Genetic aspects; Genetic polymorphisms; Health aspects; Health risks; Histocompatibility antigen HLA; HLA antigens; HLA-G Antigens - genetics; HLA-G Antigens - metabolism; Hospitals; Humans; Immunoglobulins; Immunohistochemistry; Inflammatory diseases; Laboratories; Lesions; Leukocytes; Liver cancer; Logistic Models; Lung cancer; Medical diagnosis; Medicine; Medicine and health sciences; Metastases; Molecular Sequence Data; Mortality; Neoplasm Metastasis - genetics; Patients; Polymorphism; Polymorphism, Genetic; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Tissues; Tumor Escape - genetics; Tumors; Viral infections; South Korea
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0098284

Human leukocyte antigen-G (HLA-G) is known to be implicated in a tumor-driven immune escape mechanism in malignancies. The purpose of this study was to investigate HLA-G polymorphism and expression in breast cancer. HLA-G alleles were determined by direct DNA sequencing procedures from blood samples of 80 breast cancer patients and 80 healthy controls. Soluble HLA-G (sHLA-G) was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) from serum specimens. HLA-G expression in breast cancer lesions was also analyzed by immunohistochemistry staining. The presence of HLA-G 3' untranslated region (UTR) 14-bp sequence was analyzed and found to be associated with reduced risk of breast cancer susceptibility based on HLA-G expression in tissues (P = 0.0407). Levels of sHLA-G were higher in the breast cancer group (median 117.2 U/mL) compared to the control group (median 10.1 U/mL, P<0.001). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AU-ROC) values of sHLA-G for differentiating breast cancer from normal controls and for detecting metastasis from other stages of breast cancer were 0.89 and 0.79, respectively. HLA-G polymorphism and expression may be involved in breast carcinogenesis and sHLA-G concentrations could be used as a diagnostic marker for detecting breast cancer.