Women with breast cancer without local metastasis to the axillary lymph nodes (axillary lymph node-negative, ANN) have a good prognosis. However, 20 to 30% of patients with ANN breast cancer will still experience recurrence and distant metastases. Lymphatic invasion (LVI) is an important prognostic factor for ANN breast cancer. Zinc fingers and homeoboxes 1 (ZHX1) was identified as a candidate gene involved in LVI and associated with early recurrence of ANN breast cancer. I examined expression of ZHX1 in breast cancer cell lines and ANN breast tumour samples and discovered that it is expressed at variable levels. I also investigated ZHX1 copy number and determined that amplification does not appear to be a mechanism of its over-expression. From bioinformatic and proteomic analyses, ZHX1 was discovered to potentially be phosphorylated. Overall, these studies suggest that ZHX1 may be involved in ANN breast cancer.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/32603 |
| Date | 02 August 2012 |
| Creators | Louis, Kristine Sarah |
| Contributors | Andrulis, Irene |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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