Implications of Mineralization Biomarkers in Breast Cancer Outcomes Beyond Calcifications

Overview

Journal Int J Mol Sci

Publisher MDPI

Date 2025 Jan 25

PMID 39859358

Authors

Erica Giacobbi

Rita Bonfiglio

Gabriele Rotondaro

Francesca Servadei

Artem Smirnov

Valeria Palumbo

Maria Paola Scioli

Elena Bonanno

Claudio Oreste Buonomo

Gianluca Vanni

Eleonora Candi

Alessandro Mauriello

Manuel Scimeca

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The aim of this work was to explore the biomarkers associated with epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and mineralization processes as new prognostic factors across different breast cancer phenotypes. To this end, 133 breast biopsies, including benign and malignant lesions, with or without microcalcifications, were retrospectively collected. Immunohistochemical analysis was performed to evaluate the expression of vimentin, BMP-2, BMP-4, RANKL, Runx2, OPN, PTX3, and SDF-1, while Kaplan-Meier plots were used to assess their prognostic impact on overall survival in a dataset of 2976 breast cancer patients. The expression of vimentin, BMP-2, BMP-4, and SDF-1 was significantly higher in malignant lesions compared to benign ones, regardless of the presence of microcalcifications. Notably, these markers showed no correlation with traditional prognostic factors, such as tumor grade or hormone receptor status. The bioinformatics analysis provided valuable insights into the possible prognostic and therapeutic significance of BMP-2, BMP-4, SDF-1, and vimentin in breast cancer. In fact, all these biomarkers impact on the overall survival in specific molecular breast cancer types. In addition, high expression of SDF-1 and vimentin is able to predict the response to chemotherapy. The findings here reported suggest that vimentin, BMP-2, BMP-4, and SDF-1 could be independent prognostic biomarkers in breast cancer, providing insights beyond traditional clinical factors.

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