RET finger protein expression in invasive breast carcinoma: relationship between RFP and ErbB2 expression.

RET finger protein (RFP), which belongs to the large B-box RING finger protein family, has been reported to be expressed in breast carcinoma cell lines. We conducted this study to evaluate the expression level of RFP in breast carcinomas. Tissue microarrays were constructed from 133 cases of invasive breast carcinoma. Sections obtained from tissue arrays and whole sections from 10 non-neoplastic breast tissues were stained for ER, PR, ErbB2, and RFP using immunohistochemistry, and ErbB2 gene status was evaluated by FISH. The correlation between various immunohistochemical markers was determined. We found nuclear RFP expression in 41.4% of invasive carcinomas and in none of the non-neoplastic breast tissues. We also stained whole sections of 29 cases of invasive breast carcinoma, which included the TMA study, and 10 cases of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) by RFP. We observed that four (40%) of the DCIS cases were positive with RFP. In statistical analysis, there was a significant, positive association between RFP and ErbB2 status at the protein level (p=0.002) and the gene level (p=0.049). There was no statistically significant association between the expression of RFP and tumor size, LN status, ER, PR, and grade (p>0.05). However, we found a significant association between age and RFP expression. RFP expression was stronger in patients 50 years or older (p=0.048). In our study, the expression of RFP correlated strongly with ErbB2 status. Our study is the first in the literature to show expression of RFP in patients with breast carcinoma. However, the possible role of RFP in breast carcinogenesis needs to be investigated in more detailed clinical and experimental studies.