Abstract
BACKGROUND: Adipocytokines, adipose tissue-derived proteins, were demonstrated to be involved in the pathogenesis of breast cancer. We assessed the mRNA expression of resistin, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukins 6 and 8 (IL-6, and IL-8), and estrogen receptor alpha (ER-α) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of women with and without breast cancer. METHODS: The PBMCs were isolated from the whole blood of 32 women with breast cancer and 18 women without breast cancer using density gradient centrifugation. The mRNA expression of the target genes was measured by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Body mass index was calculated, additionally, clinicopathological characteristics of the breast cancer patients were determined by histopathological examination. RESULTS: The mRNA expression of resistin (3.5-fold) and IL-6 (15-fold) in PBMCs of breast cancer patients significantly increased in comparison to healthy controls. Resistin expression was significantly associated with inflammatory markers including TNF-α, IL-6, IL-8, but not with anthropometric indices. Logistic regression analysis revealed the studied adipokines were not associated with breast cancer. Based on the ROC curve analysis the diagnostic performance of IL-6 was significant (0.825, 95% CI: 0.549-0.94, p = 0.030), thus, it might be considered as a breast cancer biomarker that reflecting an early and inflammatory stage of the disease. DISCUSSION: Breast cancer is not associated with increased expression of inflammatory cytokines in PBMCs. Our results suggested that a PBMC-based gene expression test may be developed to detect breast cancer early.