Table 1.
MMP-9 expression in breast cancer tissues, benign epithelium and lymph nodes.
Table 2.
Correlation of MMP-9 expression with clinicopathological characteristics.
Figure 1.
Immunohistochemical staining of D2-40.
A. Lymph vascular structures in the central tumor were linear, flattened, cluttered and densely arrayed; B. Stained lymphatic microvessels (long arrows) in a peripheral tumor with dilated tubes. Tumor cell clusters (indicated by asterisks) were not stained. A cluster of tumor cells in a stained vessel was recognized as lymphatic vessel invasion (LVI); C. Benign breast epithelium. Luminal epithelial cells with D2-40− staining. Myoepithelial cells from normal ducts and lobules exhibited D2-40+ immunostaining (arrow heads), but with a granular, branching membranous staining pattern distinct from the characteristic staining pattern of lymphatic endothelium shown in B. Capillary vessels were not stained (indicated by long arrow); D. Metastatic lymph nodes. Dilated lymphatic microvessel sub-capsular metastasis with no tumor cell staining (indicated by asterisks), defined as ‘tumor emboli’ (indicated by arrow). Magnification, 200×.
Figure 2.
MMP-9 mRNA expression in breast cancer tissue, breast benign tissue and lymph nodes.
Experiments were run in triplicate. *P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Figure 3.
Representative immunohistochemical staining of MMP-9.
Breast cancer sections exhibiting MMP-9- staining (A), B. MMP-9++ staining (B), and C. MMP-9+++ staining (C). MMP-9 was detected primarily the cytoplasm of breast cancer cells. Stromal cells around the tumor showed faint staining; D. Benign breast epithelium with MMP-9− staining; E. Lymph node without metastases showing MMP-9− staining; F. Lymph node with metastases demonstrating MMP-9++ staining. Asterisks indicate tumor cells. Magnification, 200×.
Table 3.
Lymphatic microvessel density (LMVD) in the tissue with negative/positive MMP-9 expression.