Relationship Between Pigment Epithelium-derived Factor(PEDF), Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) And Angiogenesis In Invasive Breast Ductal Carcinoma In Southeast Of China

Objective: To investigate the relationship between PEDF (pigmentepithelium-derived factor) and VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) inbreast cancer, and their combined effect on the angiogenesis.Methods: real time PCR was used to explore the mRNA expression ofPEDF and VEGF genes in both normal and cancerous breast tissues.Immunochemistry was used to explore the protein expression of PEDF andVEGF, as well as CD34, a vascular endothelial cell marker.Results: The PEDF mRNA expression level was higher than VEGF inboth normal and cancerous breast tissues, PEDF was positively associatedwith VEGF in both mRNA and protein levels.（p<0.001，r=0.476；p=0.028，r=0.225）. Higher PEDF mRNA (p=0.001) and lower VEGF-A (p=0.034) mRNAexpression levels were observed in cancer tissues, when compared to theperitumoral normal tissues. PEDF mRNA expression was positively correlatedwith tumor cell differentiation. The PEDF/VEGF mRNA ratio R1in tumorsamples was lower than in normal tissues, and the PEDF/VEGF mRNA ratioR2was positively associated with estrogen receptor (ER) and progesteronereceptor (PR) expression. Surprisingly, tumor tissues with PEDF or VEGFpositive staining had higher MVD counts than negative staining tumor tissues.Conclusion:1. down-expression of PEDF and up-expression of VEGF is associatedwith breast cancer.2. their positive relationship between each other indicated that PEDF doesnot have an anti-agonistic action against VEGF-induced angiogenesis ininvasive breast ductal carcinoma.3. The relationship between PEDF and sex hormone indicated that PEDF is associated with the biological behavior of breast cancer.