Chemokines and their receptors participate in the development of
cancers by enhancing
tumor cell proliferation, angiogenesis, invasion,
metastasis and penetration of
tumor immune cells. It remains unclear whether
CXC chemokine ligand 4 (CXCL4)/
CXC chemokine receptor 3-B (CXCR3-B) can be used as an independent molecular marker for establishing prognosis for
breast cancer patients. We evaluated CXCL4 and CXCR3-B expression in 114
breast cancer tissues and 30 matched noncancerous tissues using immunohistochemistry and western blot, and determined the correlation between their expression and clinicopathologic findings. We observed that
breast cancer tissues express CXCL4 strongly and CXCR3-B weakly compared to noncancerous tissues. Strong CXCL4 expression was detected in 94.7% and weak CXCR3-B expression was detected in 78.9% of the tissues. Therefore, CXCL4/CXCR3-B might play a crucial role in
breast cancer progression. We found no significant correlation between CXCL4 and age,
tumor stage,
tumor grade or TNM stage. CXCR3-B was associated significantly with
tumor grade. Moreover, the Chi-square test of association showed that the expression of CXCL4/CXCR3-B might be an independent prognostic marker for
breast cancer. Therefore, we suggest that CXCR3-B is an
indicator of poor prognosis and may also be a chemotherapeutic target.