Arginase Activity in Patients with Breast Cancer: An Analysis of Plasma, Tumors, and Its Relationship with the Presence of the Estrogen Receptor

Abstract

Background: Breast cancer is an important cause of cancerrelated death in women. In this pathological condition, arginase plays a role by providing ornithine as a substrate for the biosynthesis of polyamines which are important in tumor progression. The aim of this work was to determine the arginase activity in the plasma and tumors of patients with breast cancer; also, we investigated the relationship between this activity and the presence of the estrogen receptor. Patients and Methods: We evaluated the plasma arginase activity levels in 80 women with breast cancer and 42 healthy control subjects. We also measured the arginase levels in 42 breast cancer biopsies and 42 control tissues. Results: The mean activity of arginase in plasma was higher in breast cancer patients (0.78 nM/min/mg protein ± 0.04; p = 0.001) than in healthy volunteers (0.53 nM/ min/mg protein ± 0.04); however, this difference was indicative of patients in the advanced stages of the disease (n = 38, stage III; p < 0.0001). In addition, we did not find a relationship between the estrogen receptor and arginase activity. Conclusion: Our results show a higher arginase activity in the plasma of patients in the advanced stages of the disease, suggesting that arginase activity could serve as a possible biological marker of breast cancer progression.

Hyperpolarized [6-13C,15N3]-Arginine as a Probe for in Vivo Arginase Activity

“…12,13 Clinical studies on breast cancer patients have also demonstrated that serum arginase activity correlates with elevated histological grade. 14,15 Aside from arginase expression in cancer cells themselves, elevated arginase-1 expression in tumor associated macrophages is thought to support an immunosuppressive phenotype that promotes T-cell evasion and tumor growth. 16,17 Thus, there is a strong link between disease progression and arginase expression, and the development of an imaging agent for arginase activity will address an unmet need of significant relevance to biomedical research.…”

“…-arginine in this Article. Following synthesis of this compound, T 1 and T 2 values of the carbon-6 resonance of [6-13 C, 15…”

“…]-arginine were measured to assess the effect of 15 N-enrichment on 13 C relaxation times. In addition, enzyme kinetic parameters for recombinant arginase-1 were measured using natural abundance arginine or [6-13 C, 15…”

Estrogen receptor α promotes lung cancer cell invasion via increase of and cross‐talk with infiltrated macrophages through the CCL2/CCR2/MMP9 and CXCL12/CXCR4 signaling pathways

“…To further dissect the mechanism of how infiltrating macrophages can increase the ERa expression in the lung cancer cells, we then examined those reported cytokines that may affect ERa expression (Farmaki et al, 2016;Katz et al, 2013;Kirma et al, 2004;Lazennec and Richmond, 2010;Levano et al, 2011;Ning et al, 2016;Perez et al, 2012;Sakumoto et al, 2017;Sauv e et al, 2009). The results revealed that THP-1 cells might express higher CXCL12 compared with lung cancer A549 and H1299 cells at mRNA levels (Fig.…”

Serum Arginase, a Biomarker of Treatment Efficacy in Human African Trypanosomiasis

“…In humans, various leukocyte subpopulations synthesizing arginase may be involved (13). High arginase blood levels have been measured in sera from acute hepatitis B, resulting in T cell function suppression, and in various cancers (14,15,16). High arginase activity has been measured in cutaneous leishmaniasis lesions (17).…”