Expression and clinical significance of CXCR4 and MMP-9 in breast cancer

Objective To investigate the expressions and clinical significance of CXC chemokine receptor 4(CXCR4) and matrix metalloproteinase-9(MMP-9) in the breast cancer tissues.MethodsThe protein expressions of CXCR4 and MMP-9 were detected by immunohistochemistry in 59 cases of breast cancer tissues and 20 cases of tumor-adjacent normal tissues,and the mRNA expression of CXCR4 was measured by RT-PCR.Results The positive expression rates of CXCR4 and MMP-9 in breast cancer tissues were 66.1% and 62.7%,which were higher than 0 and 15.0% in tumor-adjacent normal tissues(P0.05).The expressions of CXCR4 and MMP-9 were closely related with lymph node metastasis(P0.05),and there was a positive correlation between CXCR4 and MMP-9 in the breast cancer tissues(rs=0.410,P0.01).Conclusion CXCR4 and MMP-9 are highly expressed and related with lymph node metastasis in breast cancer,which suggests that combined detection of CXCR4 and MMP-9 may help to determine the prognosis of patients with breast cancer.