Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UNIPROT:P04626 (erbB-2)
 5,251 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A PCR assay using capillary electrophoresis was designed for the detection of c-erbB-2 gene amplification in alcohol-formalin-acetic acid (AFA)-fixed, paraffin-embedded biopsies from 81 consecutive breast tumors. c-erbB-2 expression was analyzed in the same samples using immuno-histochemistry (IHC). In the competitive PCR assay, a single pTag plasmid containing a 4-nucleotide (nt)-deleted copy of a 124-nt sequence of c-erbB-2 and a 4-nt-deleted copy of a 120-nt sequence of GAPDH was co-amplified with genomic DNA extracted from 3 10-micrometer-thick tissue sections of the tumor biopsy. The percentage of tumor cells in the biopsy specimen and the percentage of tumor cells stained with the membrane anti-c-erbB-2 monoclonal antibody CB11 were recorded by a single pathologist on 2 consecutive sections. Among 81 consecutive tumor biopsies assayed by PCR, 21 (26%) displayed unequivocal c-erbB-2 amplification (actual gene copy number, AGCN > 4), 47 (58%) displayed no c-erbB-2 amplification (AGCN </= 2) and 7 (9%) could not be analyzed due to an insufficient amount of DNA. Six samples (7%) were considered inconclusive since the percentage of tumor cells was <20%. Analysis of c-erbB-2 expression by IHC showed that among the 21 amplified specimens 15 displayed strong staining, while all non-amplified samples (47) displayed no or only weak staining. The concordance of the 2 techniques was 91%. We conclude that c-erbB-2 gene amplification can be accurately quantitated by competitive PCR performed on small, fixed and embedded tumor samples.
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PMID:Quantitative PCR analysis of c-erb B-2 (HER2/neu) gene amplification and comparison with p185(HER2/neu) protein expression in breast cancer drill biopsies. 1047 20

Peptide growth factors have been proposed as mediators of smooth muscle-epithelial cell interactions in the human prostate; however, the identity of these molecules has not been established. In this study, we compared expression levels of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) encoding the epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor-related receptor tyrosine kinases (ErbB1 through 4), the six EGF receptor ligands, EGF, transforming growth factor (TGF)-alpha, amphiregulin (ARG), HB-EGF, betacellulin, and epiregulin, and the related molecule heregulin-alpha, in a series of 10 prostate tissue specimens. Only EGF showed a disease-specific association, with increased mRNA levels in four of five PCa specimens in comparison to matched normal tissue from the same subject. In contrast, ARG and HB-EGF mRNAs showed a coordinate pattern of expression in 7/10 specimens that was distinct from all other growth factor or receptor genes examined and from mRNAs for prostate specific antigen, the androgen receptor and GAPDH, a house-keeping enzyme. Analysis of an additional series of benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer specimens from 60 individuals confirmed that ARG and HB-EGF mRNA levels varied in a highly coordinate manner (r = 0.93; P < 0.0001) but showed no association with disease. ARG was immunolocalized largely to interstitial smooth muscle cells (SMC), previously identified as the site of synthesis of HB-EGF in the prostate, while the cognate ARG and HB-EGF receptor, ErbB1, was localized exclusively to ductal epithelial cells and carcinoma cells. Although ARG was a relatively poor mitogen for Balb/c3T3 cells in comparison to HB-EGF, it was similar in potency to HB-EGF in stimulating human prostate epithelial cell growth, suggesting that prostate epithelia may be a physiologic target for ARG in vivo. Expression of both ARG and HB-EGF mRNAs was induced in cultured prostate SMC by fibroblast growth factor-2, a human prostate SMC mitogen linked to prostate disease. These findings indicate that ARG and HB-EGF are likely to be key mediators of directional signaling between SMC and epithelial cells in the human prostate and appear to be coordinately regulated.
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PMID:Amphiregulin is coordinately expressed with heparin-binding epidermal growth factor-like growth factor in the interstitial smooth muscle of the human prostate. 1057 52

We developed a real-time one-step reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method for the routine quantification of c-erbB-2 oncogene expression in breast cancer, using a 7700 ABI PRISM Sequence Detector System (Perkin Elmer-Applied Biosystems, Courtaboeuf, France). The real-time quantification of the polymerase chain reaction products is based on the TaqMan 5' nuclease assay. The optimal experimental conditions we determined were as follows: 6 mM MgCl2, 200 nM of fluorogenic probe, 200 nM of each primer, and 12.5 units MuLV reverse transcriptase. The GAPDH housekeeping gene was used for normalization of c-erbB-2 expression. In human breast cancer cell lines, the normalized expression of c-erbB-2 ranged from 8 x 10(-6) to 2,600 x 10(-6), the two highest values corresponding to the c-erbB-2 overexpressing cells MDA-MB-453 and SK-BR-3. In a series of 100 breast cancer samples, c-erbB-2 normalized expression was found to range from 0.4 x 10(-6) to 350 x 10(-6). A close correlation was observed between this real-time one-step quantitative RT-PCR method and both semiquantitative conventional RT-PCR (N = 22; r = 0.8543; P < .0001) and c-erbB-2 protein expression (p185) quantified by an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) (N = 27; r = 0.71; P < .0001). The current realtime RT-PCR assay is rapid, sensitive, and reproducible and appears particularly suitable to quantify gene expression in large series of samples.
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PMID:A real-time one-step reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction method to quantify c-erbB-2 expression in human breast cancer. 1097 82