breast-cancer-research.com

Table 1
Cancer-related functions and interrelation of Sdc1, c-met and E-cad
Marker	Molecular characteristics	Biological functions relevant to cancer^a	Clinical relevance to breast cancer^a	Relation to c-met^a	Relation to E-cad^a

Sdc1	Cell surface heparan sulphate proteoglycan	Cell and matrix receptor [1] Coreceptor for chemokines, angiogenic and growth factors, and modulator of proteolytic activity [2-4,16,57]	Positive correlation with poor prognosis and tumour angiogenesis [6-8,33] Predictive factor in neoadjuvant chemotherapy [9]	Sdc1 is c-met co-receptor in multiple myeloma [10]	Coordinated regulation and codistribution in mammary tumor cells and epithelial-mesenchymal transition [22-25] β-Catenin responsive progenitor cells depend on Sdc1 [27,28]
c-met	Transmembrane tyrosine kinase receptor for hepatocyte growth factor	c-met pathway modulates cell dissociation and motility, protease overexpression and stimulates angiogenesis [11,12]	Expression associated with poor outcome in patients with (axillary) lymph node negative breast cancer [15,47,70] Negative prognostic factor in breast cancer [71,72]	Not applicable	Correlation with abnormal β-catenin expression suggests downregulation of E-cad/β-catenin by c-met [73]
E-cad	Epithelial calcium-dependent cell adhesion molecule	Ensures structural integrity, and contact inhibition of epithelia [21] Expression changes during epithelial-mesenchymal transition [40] Involved in β-catenin-mediated signalling [20]	Membranous staining is independent predictor for disease-free survival in lobular breast cancer [44] Loss of expression is associated with negative ER status, high histological grade, metastasis and poor prognosis in breast cancer [43,45,46,74,75] E-cad is used to distinguish ductal from lobular neopasia [18,19]	(See Sdc1)	Not applicable

^aSelected examples are given, along with references. E-cad, E-cadherin; ER, oestrogen receptor; Sdc, syndecan.
Götte et al. Breast Cancer Research 2007 9:R8 doi:10.1186/bcr1641

Table 1