Background
Breast carcinoma is the most frequent malignancy in women [
1] and represents the second leading cause of cancer death among women (15% of cancer deaths) [
2]. With 200,000 cases in the U.S.A. (27% of all cancers in women) [
3]; 320,000 cases in Europe (31% of all cancers in women) [
4] and one million new cases diagnosed worldwide every year, breast carcinoma is still a major health problem in many developed countries. In Tunisia, breast carcinoma accounts for 20–25% of malignant tumors in women with an annual incidence of about 800–1000 cases [
5]. The etiology of breast carcinoma is still poorly understood in spite of known breast carcinoma risk factors such as age, reproductive events (menarche, menopause, pregnancy, breastfeeding), exogenous hormones (hormone replacement therapy and oral contraceptives), lifestyle and environment risk factors (pollution, alcohol, diet, obesity), ionizing radiation, chemo preventive agents, as well as genetic factors (high-and low penetrance breast cancer susceptibility genes) [
6].
In hereditary breast carcinoma, mutations in highly penetrant genes such as BRCA1 or BRCA2 confer a relatively high risk for developing breast carcinoma, though this risk accounts only for about 5 to 10% of all breast carcinoma cases [
7]. It is suggested that the effect of low penetrance cancer susceptibility genes modulated by environmental exposure and lifestyle factors are likely to account for most of sporadic breast carcinoma cases [
8]. In the latters, the proportion of breast carcinoma attributable to such genetic traits, in combination with environmental exposure, is likely to be much higher than the hereditary proportion and accounts for 90 to 95% of all breast carcinoma cases [
8].
Candidate genes of low-penetrance breast carcinoma susceptibility include those encoding for Xenobiotic Metabolizing Enzymes (XMEs) involved in carcinogen metabolism and detoxification [
9]. These XMEs can be divided into phase I enzymes (Cytochrome P450 family: CYP2E1, CYP2C19, CYP2D6 and mEH) that metabolically activate potentially carcinogenic forms and phase II enzymes (N-acetyl- and gluthatione-S-transferases families: NAT1, NAT2, GSTT1, GSTM1 and GSTP1) that metabolically inactivate carcinogens to increase its solubility in such a way as to facilitate its excretion and detoxification [
10]. XMEs are also involved in the metabolism of a wide range of drugs including a variety of anticancer chemotherapy agents. These agents exert their anti-neoplastic effects by generating reactive oxygen species (ROS) whose direct cytotoxic effects are in many cases the proximate cause of tumor cell death and are likely to have initial and immediate impact on treatment efficacy [
11]. Furthermore, altered intratumoral genes coding for XMEs were suggested as a potential molecular mechanism to explain metabolism's alteration of the chemotherapy agents and consequently the reduced treatment efficacy and tumor resistance [
12].
Polymorphisms in both phase I and phase II enzyme genes may result in alteration of their expression, function and activity. Several studies have attempted to tackle the genetic polymorphisms of different XMEs alone or in combinations with altered risks of breast carcinoma [
9,
10]. Moreover, because of the great number of carcinogen-activating and detoxifying enzymes, the complexity of exposures to environmental carcinogens and gene-gene interactions, evaluating a single polymorphic enzyme may not be sufficient to assess their role in carcinogenesis. However, accumulating series of alleles "at risk" considerably increase the cancer risk.
The present study first investigated the relationship between DNA variants in Cytochrome P 450 (CYP) -2E1, -2C19, -2D6, microsomal Epoxide Hydrolase (mEH) and N-acetyltransferase -2 (NAT2) enzymes and susceptibility to breast carcinoma. Then the potential contribution of the combined multilocus genotypes in breast carcinoma susceptibility was examined. Finally, the study tried to establish a potential association of these gene variations with tumor clinical-pathological characteristics, with survival and relapse after treatment from breast carcinoma.
Discussion
The CYP2D6 polymorphism analysis revealed that the homozygous wild type genotype increased susceptibility to breast carcinoma in the selected population of postmenopausal patients, however controversial results were reported. Indeed, De Jong et al. found that homozygous mutant CYP2D6 genotype increased the risk of breast carcinoma [
18]. In the selected population, the heterozygous CYP2D6 genotype was also found to be associated to a protective effect against breast carcinoma. Conversely, Ladona et al. reported a significant association between the heterozygous CYP2D6 genotype and breast carcinoma risk among postmenopausal patients [
19]. More recently, an association with a protective effect against papillary thyroid cancer has been found with the homozygous mutant CYP2D6 genotype and similar results have been reported for tumors at other sites, such as lung cancer and leukaemia [
17,
20,
21]. The CYP450 enzymes, including CYP2D6, are responsible for the activation of procarcinogens and genotoxic metabolites [
22]. The CYP2D6 polymorphism G1934A leads to a disruption of the reading frame and a truncated non functional protein [
23,
24]. Therefore, individuals with heterozygous or mutant homozygous CYP2D6 genotypes have poor or no enzyme activity respectively. This decreases the formation of genotoxic metabolites and reduces the onset of breast carcinoma development. However, individuals carrying two copies of CYP2D6 wild type allele have higher enzyme activity than those having one or no copy of the wild type allele. Wild homozygous CYP2D6 genotype will metabolize more carcinogens to their genotoxic metabolites [
24]. Thus, this higher enzyme activity probably increases DNA damage levels and consequently the risk of breast carcinoma.
Regarding hormone-associated tumors such as ovarian, cervical or prostate cancers, many conflicting data have been found but without conclusive links to CYP450 genes. In this field, numerous studies conducted on different populations and ethnic groups have indicated the absence of a major impact of the CYP2D6, CYP2C19 and CYP2E1 genes in cancer risk [
25]. These previous findings are in accordance with ours which demonstrate the absence of any association between CYP2C19 and CYP2E1 gene polymorphisms with breast cancer. In addition, when compared with the allele frequencies of the CYP2D6, CYP2C19 and the CYP2E1 genes in Italian, Portuguese and Egyptian populations, we found similar frequencies in healthy Tunisian individuals [
20,
26‐
28]. However, the previous findings can not be generalized even with similarities between healthy individuals. Indeed, it was found in the Portuguese population that the CYP2E1 gene could be associated with prostate cancer risk [
29]. Therefore, the study of candidate gene associations to cancer susceptibility has been made difficult due to the different ethnic origins and lifestyle of the study groups. This is particularly true in the case of CYP450 enzyme genes which may influence the carcinogenesis pathway and where environmental factors are relevant and make such comparisons more difficult. Further studies are likely to detect much stronger associations of cancer susceptibility with CYP450 genes taking into account ethnicity and different environmental risk factors.
The current study suggests a significant association between the mEH homozygous mutant genotype and the risk of breast carcinoma, especially, among the subgroup of premenopausal patients. The heterozygous mEH genotype was also found to be protective against breast carcinoma in the selected population. The genetic polymorphism T348C of mEH leads to a substitution of Tyrosine (Tyr) residue 113 by Histidine (His) that is known to decrease the enzyme activity [
30]. Thus, "His113" poor activity genotype was responsible for deficient detoxification, accumulation of genotoxic metabolites and probably breast carcinoma initiation. In contrast, the presence of at least one "Tyr113" high activity allele was sufficient to detoxify genotoxic metabolites, thereby protecting breast cells against DNA damage and breast carcinoma risk. Nevertheless, several studies have indicated that the high activity Tyr113 genotype has been associated with increased risk for lung and upper aero-digestive tract cancer [
31,
32]. In addition, studies conducted in relation to ovarian cancer provide evidence against substantial increased risk associated with mEH polymorphisms [
33].
For NAT2, the alleles NAT2*5A and B, NAT2*6B and NAT2*7A observed in our study and respectively corresponding to the Ile114Thr, Arg197Gln and Gly286Glu substitutions, were associated with slow phenotype [
34]. However, the allele NAT2*12A resulting from Lys268Arg substitution produced an enzyme with an acetylating capacity similar to the wild type rapid acetylator NAT2*4 allele [
34]. Furthermore, individuals carrying one copy of rapid acetylator allele and one copy of slow acetylator allele had an intermediate phenotype [
34]. The NAT2 enzyme has been detected in human breast cells. Several studies have indicated that the level of DNA adducts in breast tissues is higher among individuals with the slow NAT2 acetylator genotype, suggesting that slow NAT2 acetylators are more susceptible to adduct-induced DNA damage, which may subsequently contribute to higher risk of breast carcinoma [
35]. These findings reinforce our results indicating that individuals who are slow acetylator have increased risk of breast carcinoma. This association was more pronounced among postmenopausal patients. Indeed, slow acetylators have a reduced rate of metabolism of aromatic and heterocyclic amines, and presumably in these individuals, arylamines shift towards the hydroxylation pathway which forms DNA reactive metabolites [
35]. Since slow acetylators may be at higher risk of adduct-induced DNA damage, they have an increased susceptibility to breast carcinogenesis. Unlikely, Alberg et al. reported that NAT2 rapid acetylator genotype was associated with increased breast carcinoma risk especially among postmenopausal patients [
35], indicating that NAT2 was acting more as an activator of procarcinogens than as a detoxifier [
35]. This association should be carefully viewed given the very small number of homozygous NAT2 rapid acetylators and the association has not been seen in other studies. For instance, in Taiwanese breast cancer cases it was found that breast cancer risk was not significantly influenced by NAT2 polymorphisms [
36]. In addition, studies which attempted to investigate the NAT2 genetic polymorphisms as an independent risk marker for breast carcinoma have failed [
37]. Like CYP450 genes, association studies of NAT2 gene polymorphisms to other hormone-associated tumors are inconsistent. NAT2 may have conflicting associating results for cancer risk in the same population. In fact, slow acetylator genotype was found to have protective and susceptibility effects against prostate and cervical cancer respectively [
38,
39].
The discrepancy between results, including ours, which tried to address the role of XME gene polymorphisms as risk factors in cancers, particularly breast carcinoma, may be due to several confounding factors including differences in ethnicity of the analyzed populations, sample size, the type of environmental carcinogens to which different population are exposed and the simultaneous involvement of a large number of XME variants.
In this study, mEH gene polymorphism was also associated with the early onset of breast carcinoma whereas polymorphisms in NAT2 and CYP2D6 genes are also correlated with late onset of breast carcinoma. These findings indicate that the penetrance of XME genes varies according to the time of onset of breast carcinoma. This suggests that there could be some new contributing factors, most likely environmental, affecting the penetrance and phenotype expression of XME gene polymorphisms. Indeed, this influence was mostly proposed in certain studies, especially those conducted on hereditary breast carcinoma related to BRCA1/2 genes [
40]. This partly explains the emergence of genes such as XMEs but not others at a given epoch in the etiology of breast carcinoma.
For further comprehension of the role played by XME genes polymorphisms in breast carcinoma prognosis and survival, we examined whether the five gene polymorphisms were associated with clinical pathological parameters, Overall survival (OVS) and Disease free Survival (DFS) after treatment. None of the clinical pathological parameters analyzed showed any statistically significant differences by the genotypes of each of the five genes. This is in accordance with results found by Chacko et al. for other XME genes [
10] (CYP1A1, GSTT1 and GSTM1) but our results disagree with the findings of Han et al. which showed that polymorphisms of XMEs genes such as CYP1A1, CYP19 and CYP1B1 can influence clinical pathological features of breast carcinoma [
9]. The influence of XMEs genes polymorphisms on breast carcinoma prognosis is still poorly understood.
XME enzymes play a crucial role in the detoxification of numerous products induced by cancer therapy [
4] and altered intra-tumoral gene coding for XMEs was suggested as a potential molecular mechanism to explain reduced treatment efficacy, tumor resistance [
12], and consequently survival and relapse after treatment. Several studies highlighted the role of XME gene polymorphisms such as CYP1A1, CYP1B1, CYP2D6, mEH, GSTT1, GSTM1 and NAT1 in treatment efficacy as well as survival after treatment of breast carcinoma [
10,
12,
13,
31,
41]. Previous studies were largely carried out on small or heterogeneous populations. In our previous data, the effect of GSTT1 and GSTM1 gene deletions on survival after treatment of breast carcinoma was not evident in the entire population [
13]. In the present study, mEH wild-type genotype was significantly associated with decreased OVS in the same Tunisian population of breast carcinoma patients. In addition, the selection of axillary lymph node-positive breast carcinoma allowed the appearance of a significant association between decreased disease-free survival of breast carcinoma and the mEH wild genotype. These results were reinforced by the study of Fritz et al. indicating that mEH was identified as a predictor of the tamoxifen (anticancer drug) response in breast carcinoma [
41]. Indeed, individuals carrying mEH wild-type genotype actively detoxify anticancer agents, reduce treatment efficacy and consequently decrease survival after treatment. No association was found with the four other gene polymorphisms. However, there was an increase in DFS for patients with axillary lymph node-negative carrying NAT2 intermediate acetylator genotype.
In conclusion, this study suggests that CYP2D6, mEH and NAT2 gene polymorphisms may be attractive susceptibility markers for breast carcinoma. A further interesting finding is that mEH and NAT2 gene polymorphisms represent a prognostic variable for predicting survival and relapse after treatment in breast carcinoma patients.
Competing interests
The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors' contributions
AK conceived of the study, conducted data analysis, drafted the manuscript and with SG and EH carried out the experiments. EH contributed to reviewing the manuscript. NB and S-BA provided samples and clinical information. LC conceived, designed and participated in the data analysis and interpretation of the study. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.