Special Issue "Feature Papers: Advances in Oncology"

Assistant Editor
Mr. Dietrich Rordorf
MDPI, Kandererstrasse 25, CH-4057 Basel, Switzerland
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No papers have been published in this special issue yet, see below for planned papers.

Submission Information

All manuscripts should be submitted to cancers@mdpi.org with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

For the first two issues, to be published in 2009 and 2010, the Article Processing Charges (APC) will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

Title: Increased Level of Phosphorylated ShcA Measured by Chemiluminescence-linked Immunoassay is a Predictor of Good Prognosis in Primary Breast Cancer Expressing Low Levels of Estrogen Receptor
Authors: Jonas Cicenas ^{1, 2,} *, Willy Küng ², Urs Eppenberger ¹, Serenella Eppenberger-Castori ¹
Affiliation: ¹ Stiftung Tumorbank Basel, ² Molecular Tumor biology, Department of Research, Kantonspital Basel, Switzerland
* To whom requests for reprints should be addressed: Jonas Cicenas, PhD, Unit of Gene Therapy & Stem Cell Biology, Service Universitaire d'Ophtalmologie, Hõpital Jules-Gonin, 15, av. de France, CH-1004 Lausanne, Tel .+4121 626 83 21, Fax: +4121 626 88 88; Email: jonasc@dr.com
Abstract: The SH2 domain-containing adapter protein ShcA is a proto-oncogene involved in growth factor receptor signaling. The role of phosphorylated ShcA proteins is to link together receptor tyrosine kinases and another SH2-containing adaptor protein. The role of phosphorylated ShcA proteins is to link together receptor tyrosine kinases and the SH2-containing adaptor protein – Grb2, thus facilitating the transduction of signals from receptor tyrosine kinases to Ras, leading to MAPK activation. The present study was designed to investigate the prognostic significance of phosphorylated ShcA in primary breast cancer and its association with other tumor biomarkers. Using a two-site chemiluminescence-linked immunosorbent assay, we measured the quantitative expression levels of total tyrosine and threonine phosphorylated ShcA in cytosol fractions obtained from fresh frozen tissue samples of 153 primary breast cancer patients. ShcA phosphorylation was not associated with nodal status, estrogen receptor (ER) status or grading. High levels of both tyrosine (pYSchA) and serine (pSShcA) phosphorylated ShcA correlated (P < 0.01) with good prognosis, both in case of disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). In addition, pShcA levels were found to correlate with threonine-phosphorylated ErbB2 and inversely correlate with phosphorylated Akt (pAkt) levels as well as ErbB2 and ER expression levels. Our findings demonstrate that ShcA activation in primary breast cancer patients, which express low levels of estrogen receptor, is associated with good prognosis.
Keywords: ShcA, immunoassay, kinase, biomarker, estrogen receptor, phosphorylation