The Clinical Significance of Expression of DLL4 and in Breast Carcinoma

Objective To study the expression of DLL4(Delta-like ligand 4) in breast carcinoma and its clinical significance.Methods Tissue chip and immunohistochemical staining were used to examine the expression of DLL4 in 122 cases of invasive breast carcinoma and 28 cases of ductal carcinoma in situ(DCIS).The results and clinical-pathological data were analyzed statistically.Results The positive rate of DLL4 in DCIS,invasive breast carcinoma grade Ⅰ,gradeⅡ and gradeⅢ was 21.4%,48.5%,75% and 91.8% respectively,and the expression of DLL4 was increased accompanied with the histological grade and related with the tumor size,TNM stage,lymph node state(P0.05),but was irrelevant to age,ER,PR and HER2 expression(P0.05).Conclusion DLL4 might play a more important role in high grade breast carcinomas than in low grade ones and be related with the development and prognosis of human breast carcinoma.It may be an important marker to predict prognosis of breast carcinoma and could be a new target for therapy.