Breast tumorigenesis proceeds through an accumulation of specific genetic alteration. Breast malignant transformation is dependent not only on the rate of cell production but also on apoptosis, a genetically programmed process of autonomous cell death. We investigated whether breast tumorigenesis involves an altered susceptibility to apoptosis by examining normal breast epithelium and breast cancer samples. We found there is a significant inhibition of spontaneous apoptosis in breast cancer cells compared with normal breast epithelium. The inhibition of apoptosis in breast cancer may contribute to neoplastic transformation.
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Shao et al. (1996) studied this question.