Search Results

It has been reported that agonists of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) inhibit proliferation of breast carcinoma cells, but the biological significance of PPARγ remains undetermined in human breast carcinomas. Therefore, we immunolocalized PPARγ in 238 human breast carcinoma tissues. PPARγ immunoreactivity was detected in 42% of carcinomas, and was significantly associated with the status of estrogen receptor (ER) α, ERβ, progesterone receptor, retinoic X receptors, p21 or p27, and negatively correlated with histological grade or cyclooxygenase-2 status. PPARγ immunoreactivity was significantly associated with an improved clinical outcome of breast carcinoma patients by univariate analysis, and multivariate analysis demonstrated that PPARγ immunoreactivity was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival in ERα-positive patients. We then examined possible mechanisms of modulation by PPARγ on estrogenic actions in MCF-7 breast carcinoma cells. A PPARγ activator, 15-deoxy-Δ^12,14- prostaglandin J₂ (15d-PGJ₂), significantly inhibited estrogen-responsive element-dependent transactivation by estradiol in MCF-7 cells, which was blocked by addition of a PPARγ antagonist GW9662. Subsequent study, employing a custom-made microarray focused on estrogen-responsive genes, revealed that mRNA expression was significantly regulated by estradiol in 49 genes, but this significance vanished on addition of 15d-PGJ₂ in 16 out of 49 (33%) genes. These findings were confirmed by real-time PCR in 11 genes. 15d-PGJ₂ significantly inhibited estrogen-mediated proliferation of MCF-7 cells, and caused accumulation of p21 and p27 protein. These results suggest that PPARγ is mainly expressed in well-differentiated and ER-positive breast carcinomas, and modulates estrogenic actions.

It is very important to examine the influence of inhibition of in situ estrogen production on the pathobiology of human sex steroid-dependent tumors in order to understand the clinical effects of aromatase inhibitors. We have examined the biological changes before and after aromatase inhibitor treatment in vitro (endometrial and ovarian cancer) and in vivo (breast cancer). First, we analyzed these changes using histoculture of 15 human endometrial cancers and 9 ovarian cancers. Five of the fifteen endometrial cancers and four of the nine ovarian cancers demonstrated decreased [3H]thymidine uptake or Ki67 labeling index after 14alpha-hydroxy-4-androstene-3,6,17-trione (NKS01) treatment. In ovarian cancer cases, the responsive cases tended to be associated with higher aromatase and estrogen receptor alpha (ER) expression compared with the other cases but this was not seen in the endometrial cancer cases. There were no changes in ER and aromatase expression before and after NKS01 treatment in either ovarian or endometrial cancer cases. We then studied the same primary human breast tumors before and after aminoglutethimide (AMG, n=3) and 4-hydroxyandrostenedione (4-OHA, n=3) treatment. Tumor aromatase activity increased in 3 cases and decreased or was unchanged in 3 cases but aromatase immunoreactivity in stroma and adipocytes was unaltered in 5 cases. There were no changes in the ER labeling index before or after treatment. Five of the six cases including the responsive cases tended to be associated with decreased cell proliferation or Ki67 expression and increased apoptosis when examined by the TUNEL method. These results indicate that aromatase inhibitors may exert their effects on human breast and other cancers through decreasing proliferation and increasing apoptosis, possibly without altering ER status.

Estrogen is the most important known factor that stimulates the growth of endometriosis. Estrogen delivery to endometriotic implants was classically viewed to be only via the circulating blood in an endocrine fashion. We recently uncovered an autocrine positive feedback mechanism, which favored the continuous production of estrogen and prostaglandin (PG)E2 in the endometriotic stromal cells. The enzyme, aromatase, is aberrantly expressed in endometriotic stromal cells and catalyzes the conversion of C19 steroids to estrogens, which then stimulate cyclooxygenase-2 to increase the levels of PGE2. PGE2, in turn, is a potent inducer of aromatase activity in endometriotic stromal cells. Aromatase is not expressed in the eutopic endometrium. Aromatase expression in endometriosis and its inhibition in eutopic endometrium are controlled by the competitive binding of a stimulatory transcription factor, steroidogenic factor-1, and an inhibitory factor, chicken ovalbumin upstream promoter-transcription factor to a regulatory element in the aromatase P450 gene promoter. In addition, we find that endometriotic tissue is deficient in 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2, which is normally expressed in eutopic endometrial glandular cells and inactivates estradiol-17beta to estrone. This deficiency is another aberration that favors higher levels of estradiol-17beta in endometriotic tissues in comparison with the eutopic endometrium. The clinical relevance of local aromatase expression in endometriosis was exemplified by the successful treatment of an unusually aggressive form of recurrent endometriosis in a postmenopausal woman using an aromatase inhibitor.