Clinical Implications of iNOS Levels in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Responding to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy

PLoS One. 2015 Jul 21;10(7):e0130286. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0130286. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Triple-negative breast cancer is a high-risk breast cancer with poor survival rate. To date, there is a lack of targeted therapy for this type of cancer. One unique phenomenon is that inflammatory breast cancer is frequently triple negative. However, it is still ambiguous how inflammation influences triple-negative breast cancer growth and responding to chemotherapy. Herein, we investigated the levels of inflammation-associated enzyme, iNOS, in 20 triple-negative breast cancer patients' tumors, and examined its correlation with patients' responses to platinum-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Our studies showed that triple-negative breast cancer patients with attenuated iNOS levels in tumor cells after treatment showed better responses to platinum-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy than other triple-negative breast cancer patients. Our further in vitro studies confirmed that induction of proper levels of NO increased the resistance to cisplatin in triple-negative MDA-MB-231 cells. Our data suggest that aberrant high level of iNOS/NO are associated with less effectiveness of platinum-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer. Therefore, we propose to monitor iNOS levels as a new predictor for triple-negative breast cancer patient's response to platinum-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Moreover, iNOS/NO is considered as a potential target for combination therapy with platinum drugs for triple-negative breast cancer.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Antineoplastic Agents / therapeutic use*
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cisplatin / therapeutic use*
  • Drug Resistance, Neoplasm / drug effects
  • Female
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic / drug effects
  • Humans
  • Neoadjuvant Therapy / methods
  • Nitric Oxide / pharmacology
  • Nitric Oxide Synthase Type II / metabolism*
  • Treatment Outcome
  • Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms / drug therapy*
  • Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms / enzymology
  • Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms / pathology

Substances

  • Antineoplastic Agents
  • Nitric Oxide
  • NOS2 protein, human
  • Nitric Oxide Synthase Type II
  • Cisplatin

Grants and funding

Dr. Chen Bo received funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81372811, http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/publish/portal1/) and the Science and Technology Agency of Liaoning Province (No. 2013225049, http://www.lninfo.gov.cn/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.