Vet. Res. 34 (2003) 193-202
DOI: 10.1051/vetres:2002066

Expression levels of the focal adhesion-associated proteins paxillin and p130 in canine and feline mammary tumors

Antonio Scibelli^a, Danila d'Angelo^a, Alessandra Pelagalli^a, Simona Tafuri^b, Luigi Avallone^a, Rossella Della Morte^a and Norma Staiano<sup>a

a</sup>  Dipartimento di Strutture, Funzioni e Tecnologie Biologiche, Università di Napoli Federico II, Via Delpino 1, 80137 Napoli, Italy
^b  Dipartimento di Biochimica e Biotecnologie Mediche, Università di Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy

(Received 13 June 2002; accepted 17 October 2002)

Abstract
Paxillin and p130 are two adaptor proteins localized at the focal adhesions which play an important role in cell signaling, cell motility and oncogenic transformation. In this study we evaluated the levels of paxillin and p130 in feline and canine mammary tumor tissues at different stages of malignancy. The results obtained by Western blotting analysis showed no significant differences in the amounts of paxillin and p130 between normal and non-invasive tumor tissues. By contrast, mammary tumor tissues with the invasive phenotype showed lower levels of paxillin P < 0.01 and higher levels of p130 P < 0.001 than normal tissues. The decrease P < 0.001 of the amount of paxillin and the increase P < 0.001 of p130 levels were correlated with the progression stage of malignancy. Since paxillin and p130 are involved in regulating cell migration, our results suggest that low levels of paxillin together with high levels of p130 expression may cause certain breast cancers to be more motile and possibly more aggressive. Thus, both paxillin and p130 may represent useful prognosticators of feline and canine breast cancer malignancy.

Key words: paxillin / p130 / mammary tumor / cat / dog

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