Our data suggest that the oncogenic role of Bmi-1 in human primary breast carcinomas is not determined by its capacity to inhibit INK4a/ARF proteins or to induce telomerase activity.
Here, we report that the expression of Bmi-1 and Mel-18 inversely correlates in a number of breast cancer cell lines and in a significant number of breast tumor samples.
The higher expression levels of Bmi-1 correlated with well-established markers of poor clinical outcome in breast cancer such as positive p53 immunostaining and negative progesterone receptors.
Bmi-1 was expressed in 53.2% of breast cancer patients by immunohistochemistry, and the expression of Bmi-1 was significantly correlated with favorable prognostic indices at diagnosis.
Bmi-1 mRNA is significantly up-regulated in adjacent normal breast tissue in breast cancer patients compared to normal breast tissue from noncancerous patients.
These results indicate that Bmi-1 may play an important role in radiosensitivity, and the suppression of its expression might be a potential therapeutic target for breast cancer.
Regulation of B cell-specific Moloney murine leukaemia virus integration site 1 (BMI1) expression with increase in histological grades of breast carcinoma in correlation with hormone receptor status was studied in 60 Indian breast cancer patient's formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue blocks.
Thus, our study suggests a cross-talk between Bmi1 and miR-200c mediated by p53, and Bmi1 interference would improve chemotherapy efficiency in breast cancer via susceptive apoptosis induction and cancer stem cell enrichment inhibition.
In Caucasian populations, high expression of Bmi-1 was associated with better OS in breast cancer (HR=0.70, 95% CI 0.51-0.97), but it showed no significance in oesophageal carcinoma.
This study not only bridges the missing link between stem cell-related transcription factor (Bmi1) and ABC transporter (ABCC5) but also contributes to development of potential therapeutics against breast cancer.
We also show that PTC-209, a small molecule inhibitor of BMI1 gene expression induces cellular senescence and transcriptionally upregulates expression of miR-200c/141 cluster in breast cancer cells.
Here we have made an endeavor to search whether any miRNAs are involved in the regulation of BMI1 in breast cancer that leads to mitochondrial dependent apoptotic cell death.