These results indicate that the mammary gland sodium/iodide symporter may be an essential breast cancer marker and that radioiodide should be studied as a possible option in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.
Using quantitative real-time RT-PCR, we found that all 22 fresh human breast cancer samples had very low NIS expression similar to levels in untreated MCF-7 breast cancer cells.
One of the most exciting current areas of NIS research-radioiodide treatment of extrathyroidal cancers-was launched by the discovery of functional expression of endogenous NIS in breast cancer and by the ectopic transfer of the NIS gene into otherwise non NIS-expressing cancers.
The rat sodium iodide symporter gene permits more effective radioisotope concentration than the human sodium iodide symporter gene in human and rodent cancer cells.
The preincubation of NIS-CHO with IgGs purified from sera of BC with the highest levels of TPOAb and TgAb caused an inhibition of iodine uptake of no more than 5%.
The recent discovery that more than 80% of human breast carcinomas endogenously express NIS protein has opened a very interesting new area of research into the possibility of using radioiodide in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.
In this study, using breast cancer cell lines, we established that tRA-responsive NIS expression is confined to estrogen receptor-alpha (ERalpha) positive cells and we investigated the role of ERalpha in the regulation of NIS expression.
One is based on the reinduction of endogenous NIS expression in thyroid and breast cancer by targeting the main mechanisms involving tumoral transformation and dedifferentiation.
Transducing the hNIS gene into breast cancer cells with adenovirus could be a tractable strategy to render breast cancer susceptible to radioiodide therapy.
To extend the use of NIS-mediated radioiodine therapy to other types of cancer, we successfully transferred and expressed the sodium-iodide symporter (NIS) gene in prostate, colon, and breast cancer cells both in vivo and in vitro by using non-replicating adenoviral vectors.
In this study, we used superparamagentic iron oxide (SPIO)-labeled APCs to carry the human sodium iodide symporter (hNIS) gene to the sites of implanted breast cancer in mouse model.
In this study, we analyzed the regulation of the NIS and lactoperoxidase (LPO) gene expression in 4 different human breast cancer cell lines, representative of different histotypes of breast cancer.
Since NIS expression in breast cancer is not sufficient for a significant iodide uptake, drugs able to induce its expression and correct function are under evaluation.
Altogether, these findings indicate that NIS expression is prevalent in breast cancer brain metastases and could have a therapeutic role via the delivery of radioactive iodide and selective ablation of tumor cells.