Figure 8. DDR2 expression is present in the majority of human invasive ductal breast cancers and correlates with the presence of nuclear Snail1 and loss of E-cadherin expression.

(a) Immunohistochemical analysis for DDR2 protein expression in 80 human invasive ductal carcinoma, 80 human invasive lobular carcinoma, or 15 cancer-associated normal breast samples. Shown is a representative example of invasive ductal carcinoma sample (right) and cancer-associated normal breast sample (left). Scale bar 100 µm. Results are tabulated in the table below. (b) Kaplan-Meier survival curve for 320 humans with invasive breast cancers. Gene copy number assessment at MSKCC cancer genome portal. 5% (18) have increased DDR2 gene copy number (red line). Blue line represents remaining patients with normal DDR2 gene copy number. (c) Immunohistochemical staining for DDR2, Snail1, and E-cadherin in sequential slices of 148 invasive human ductal breast carcinoma or 20 cancer-associated normal breast samples. Shown is a representative sample of normal breast (upper panels) and invasive ductal carcinoma (lower panels). Black arrow indicates the presence of nuclear Snail1 staining in a DDR2 positive, E-cadherin negative sample. Scale bar equals 100 µm. Results are tabulated in the table of the right. (d, e) Immunohistochemical determination of DDR2 protein expression and collagen deposition (Trichrome stain) in 30 human invasive ductal carcinomas. (d) The percent of tumors with increased collagen deposition, or not, that expressed DDR2. (e) The percent of DDR2 positive or negative tumors that exhibited increased collagen deposition.