Hexokinase and phosphofructokinase activity and intracellular distribution correlate with aggressiveness and invasiveness of human breast carcinoma

// Raquel G. Coelho 1, 2, 5 , Isadora C. Calaça 1 , Deborah M. Celestrini 1 , Ana Helena P. Correia-Carneiro 3 , Mauricio M. Costa 3 , Patricia Zancan 4 , Mauro Sola-Penna 1 1 Laboratório de Enzimologia e Controle do Metabolismo (LabECoM), Departamento de Biotecnologia Farmacêutica, Faculdade de Farmácia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil 2 Instituto de Bioquímica Médica Leopoldo De Meis, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil 3 Hospital Universitário Clementino Fraga Filho, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil 4 Laboratório de Oncobiologia Molecular (LabOMol), Departamento de Biotecnologia Farmacêutica, Faculdade de Farmácia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil 5 Present address: Laboratório de Fisiologia Endócrina Doris Rosenthal (LFE), Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil Correspondence to: Mauro Sola-Penna, e-mail: maurosp@ufrj.br Keywords: glycolysis, prognosis, breast cancer, treatment, diagnosis Received: May 29, 2015      Accepted: July 27, 2015      Published: August 07, 2015 ABSTRACT Glycolytic enzymes, such as hexokinase and phosphofructokinase, have been reported to be upregulated in many cancer types. Here, we evaluated these two enzymes in 54 breast cancer samples collected from volunteers subjected to mastectomy, and the results were correlated with the prognosis markers commonly used. We found that both enzymes positively correlate with the major markers for invasiveness and aggressiveness. For invasiveness, the enzymes activities increase in parallel to the tumor size. Moreover, we found augmented activities for both enzymes when the samples were extirpated from patients presenting lymph node involvement or occurrence of metastasis. For aggressiveness, we stained the samples for the estrogen and progesterone receptors, HER-2, p53 and Ki-67. The enzyme activities positively correlated with all markers but Ki-67. Finally, we conclude that these enzymes are good markers for breast cancer prognosis.