Table 4.

Effect of progesterone, nitric oxide (NO), and NAME on maspin synthesis in normal, progesterone receptor + (PR+), and PR– neutrophils

Maspin(nM/6 × 109 cells)
	NORMAL	PR+	PR-
Progesterone (25 nM)	2.329 ± 0.012a	1.138 ± 0.024b	0
NO (5 μM)	2.752 ± 0.15ac	1.821 ± 0.16bc	0.692 ± 0.008c
Progesterone (25 nM) + NAME (10 mM)	0	0	0
NO (5 μM) + NAME (10 mM)	2.752 ± 0.15	1.821 ± 0.16	0.692 ± 0.008

The neutrophil suspensions were prepared from the blood of patients with PR+ or PR– breast cancer and of age-matched normal female volunteers as described in the Materials and Methods section. The neutrophil preparations (6 × 10⁹ cells/L) were suspended in Hank’s balanced salt solution (pH7.4) and treated with progesterone (25 nM) and, NO (5 μM). In a separate experiment, a neutrophil suspension was incubated with NAME (10 mM) and with either NO or progesterone. Results are mean ± SD of five different experiments in triplicate using blood of 15 patients with breast cancer and 15 normal female volunteers.

^aP<0.005, n=5;

^bP<0.005, n=5;

^cP<0.005, n=5.