Figure 4.

pAkt^ser473 is elevated in a subset of clinical samples of basal-like breast cancer. (A) Sections from five clinical samples classified as basal-like breast cancer were immunostained for total Akt (green, 800 nm) or pAkt^ser473 (red, 700 nm) and scanned using the near-infrared (NIR) scanner. The sample from Case 129 contains both normal tissue (NT) and cancerous tissue (CT). In Case 72, there was a longitudinal structure in the section that contained skin and resulted in a structure that is faintly visible in the negative control and also demonstrated elevated signal of both total Akt and pAkt^ser473. The samples from the last three cases were classified as homogeneous basal-like breast cancer (BLBC). Scale bar = 5 mm. (B) Quantification of the pAkt^ser473 signal relative to the total Akt signal in the different clinical BLBC samples. For Case 129, the pAkt^ser473 was quantified both in the NT and in the CT. Quantifications were done in three to five randomly selected circular regions of interest of the tumors and presented as the mean relative intensity in the different areas with standard deviations. (C) The pAkt^ser473 signal is mainly located to the plasma membrane of the cancer cells in BLBC. Imaged area is from the area labeled with an arrowhead in (A). Scale bar = 20 μm.