CXCL13/CXCR5 are potential biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis for breast cancer.

Purpose Breast cancer is known as the second frequent cancer in the world, even as the most common cancer among women. This study aimed to explore the correlation of CXCL13/CXCR5 expression with clinical characteristics in breast cancer and evaluate their potential to be used as biomarkers in diagnosis and prognosis of this disease. Methods A total of 133 female patients diagnosed with breast cancer were collected. The expression of CXCL13 and CXCR5 mRNA was analyzed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and immunohistochemical staining. Results The expression of CXCL13 and CXCR5 was significantly higher in breast cancer tissue than in normal breast tissues, with a high correlation coefficient of 0.9973. Positive cell numbers and positive expression rates of CXCL13 and CXCR5 in cancer breast tissue were much higher than those in normal breast tissue, and raised with increase of cancer stage. The high expression of CXCL13 and CXCR5 in breast cancer tissue was notably associated with lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, disease stage, but not with age, Her-2 status, histological type or tumor size. Immunohistochemistry analysis showed that the positive expression of CXCL13 and CXCR5 was related with cancer stage, Also, positive expression of CXCL13 was correlated with positive expression of CXCR5. Patient age, Her-2 status, tumor size, histological type, and lymph node metastasis were independent factors for the 5-year survival rate of breast cancer patients, whereas the 5-year survival was correlated with distant metastasis and expression of CXCL13 and CXCR5. Conclusions These results suggested that CXCL13 and CXCR5 expressions could act as potential biomarkers for breast cancer diagnosis and prognosis.