• Yasuo Miyoshi, Satoshi Nakayama, Yasuhiro Torikoshi, Satoshi Tanaka, Hideki Ishihara, Tetsuya Taguchi, Yasuhiro Tamaki, and Shinzaburo Noguchi.
• Department of Breast and Endocrine Surgery, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-2 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
• Cancer Sci. 2006 Jun 1; 97 (6): 523-9.

AbstractThe present study investigated the mRNA expression level of ubiquitin c-terminal hydrolase (UCH)-L1 and -L3 in breast cancer tissue and aimed to elucidate its association with tumor characteristics and patient prognosis. UCH-L1 and UCH-L3 mRNA levels in invasive breast cancer (n = 100) were determined by a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay and their relationship with various clinicopathological characteristics of breast tumors as well as patient prognosis were studied. UCH-L3 mRNA level was significantly upregulated in breast cancer tissue compared to adjacent normal breast tissue (P < 0.005), and UHC-L1 mRNA level also showed a non-significant increase in tumor tissue compared to adjacent normal breast tissue. Both UCH-L1 and UCH-L3 mRNA levels were significantly higher in high histological grade tumors than in low histological grade tumors (P < 0.001 and P < 0.005, respectively). High UCH-L1 mRNA level was significantly associated with negative estrogen receptor status (P < 0.05) and negative progesterone receptor status (P < 0.05). Patients with both UCH-L1 and UCH-L3 mRNA high tumors showed a significantly poorer prognosis than those in the UCH-L1 or UCH-L3 mRNA low group (P < 0.005). These observations that UCH-L3 mRNA level is upregulated in breast cancer tissue, and breast tumors with both UCH-L1 and UCH-L3 mRNA high expression are associated with a poor prognosis, suggest the possible involvement of UCH-L1 and UCH-L3 in the pathogenesis and progression of breast cancer.

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