EXPRESSION OF FGF AND FGF RECEPTOR GENES IN HUMAN BREAST-CANCER

The family of FGF growth factors is involved in several biological pro cesses and might play an important role in tumorigenesis. We have stud ied the respective expression of 8 of the 9 characterized FGF genes, a nd of the 4 known FGF receptor genes, in a panel of 10 tumor-cell line s and 103 breast-tumor samples, using RT-PCR and Northern-blot analyse s. FGF1 and FGF2 were expressed in almost all samples, while expressio n of FGF5, FGF6, FGF7 and FGF9 was more restricted. FGFR1, FGFR2 and F GFR4 were expressed at high levels in respectively 22%, 4% and 32% of tumors. FGFR3 expression was not detected. The transcript encoding an FGFR1 isoform with 2 immunoglobulin-like domains was the most prevalen t. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.