Expressions of Twist and hypoxia inducible factor-1α in invasive ductal carcinoma of breast and their relationships with epithelial-mesenchymal transition

Objective To investigate the expression of Twist and hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) in invasive ductal carcinoma of breast and their relationships with epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT).Methods Expression levels of Twist,HIF-1α,E-cadherin and Vimentin in 90 cases of invasive ductal carcinoma tissues and corresponding adjacent tissues were detected by immunohistochemical staining of streptavid-in-peroxidase (SP) method.Results The positive expression rate of Twist,HIF-1 α,E-cadherin and Vimentin was 73.3％,68.9％,15.6％ and 64.4％ respectively in breast cancer tissues,and 7.8％,8.9％,75.6％ and 34.4％ respectively in adjacent tissues.The difference in positive rate between breast cancer tissues and adjacent tissues was statistically significant (P ＜ 0.05).The expression levels of Twist and HIF-1α were correlated with histological grade and lymph node metastasis (P ＜ 0.05).There was a positive correlation between expression levels of Twist and HIF-1α.The expression levels of Twist and HIF-1α were closely correlated with low expression of E-cadherin and high expression of Vimentin.Conclusion Twist,HIF-1α and Vimentin in breast cancer tissues showed higher expression,while E-cadherin lower expression.HIF-1α may promote the occurrence of EMT by up-regulating the expression of Twist,which makes it become one of the possible ways to promote the invasion and metastasis of breast cancer. Key words: Breast carcinoma ;  Epithelial-mesenchymal transition ;  Twist ;  Hypoxia inducible factor-1α