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Vanderbilt Center for Health Services Research and Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37232-8300 [W. Z., X-O. S., Q. D., W-Q. W.]; Department of Epidemiology, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Shanghai, China 200032 [F. J., Q. D., Y-T. G.]; Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55417 [L. A. D., J. L. H.]; and Department of Pharmacology, University of Minnesota School of Medicine, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55454 [L. A. D., J. L. H.]
| Abstract |
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-hydroxyestrone. It is also involved in the activation of many other mammary carcinogens, such as the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heterocyclic amines. We evaluated the association between urinary cortisol ratios and breast cancer risk in a subgroup of women who participated in a population-based case-control study in Shanghai. Overnight urine samples from 246 case-control pairs were assayed for 6ß-hydroxycortisol (6ß-OHC) to cortisol. The urine samples from all of the breast cancer patients were collected before any chemotherapy or radiotherapy. In-person interviews were conducted to obtain comprehensive information on dietary habits, reproductive history, and other lifestyle factors. The median levels of 6ß-OHC:cortisol ratios were 2.61 in cases and 2.16 in controls, a 20.8% difference (P < 0.001). The case-control difference was larger in women over 45 years of age (31.3% difference; P < 0.001) than younger women (6.0%; P = 0.45). After adjusting for confounding variables, the risks of breast cancer were increased from 1.0 (reference) to 1.6 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.93.1], 2.2 (95% CI, 1.14.2), and 3.7 (95% CI, 1.97.4; P for trend, <0.001) with increasing levels of 6ß-OHC:cortisol ratios. The positive association was more pronounced among older women (>45 years) than among younger women (
45 years). The adjusted odds ratios associated with the highest cortisol ratio were 6.0 (95%CI, 2.216.1) among older women and 2.2 (95%CI, 0.86.1) among younger women. The association of the 6ß-OHC:cortisol ratio was stronger among older women who had a high body mass index, late age at menopause, and early age at menarche (factors related to high endogenous estrogen exposure) than those who did not have these factors. These findings are consistent with the role of CYP3A4 in estrogen and carcinogen metabolism and suggest that high CYP3A4 activity may be a risk factor for breast cancer risk. | Introduction |
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-hydroxyestrogens and 4-hydroxyestrogens, retain estrogenic activity and can also bind to DNA to form adducts (11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
. These observations would suggest that the 4-hydroxy and 16
-hydroxy metabolites may have a role in the initiation of breast cancer. The levels of 16
-hydroxyestrogens are elevated in mouse strains with a high frequency of mammary tumors (11)
. Similarly, the 4-hydroxyestrogens, but not the 2-hydroxyestrogens, have been found to induce tumors in animal models (11)
. Several recent studies (16, 17, 18)
have shown that CYP3A4 plays a major role in the 4- and 16
-hydroxylation of estrogens, particularly estrone, the predominant form of estrogens in postmenopausal women (10
, 11)
. CYP3A4 is also involved in the activation of many environmental carcinogens, such as the polycyclic hydrocarbons, heterocyclic amines, aflatoxin, and nitrosamines (7, 8, 9
, 19
, 20)
. Some of these have been shown to be mammary carcinogens in experimental animals (21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
. Furthermore, CYP3A4 is present in human mammary epithelial cells (26)
, suggesting that this enzyme may be involved in the in situ activation of mammary carcinogens in these target cells.
Large interindividual variations in the activity of CYP3A4 have been reported (7
, 8)
. Much of this variation is likely attributable to genetic polymorphisms in the gene that encodes this enzyme and/or regulates the level of gene expression. A polymorphism in a regulatory element of the 5'-flanking region (-290 A
G) of the CYP3A4 gene has been recently reported (27)
. This polymorphism was shown to be related to the risk of prostate cancer (27
, 28) and treatment-related leukemia (29)
. Recently, we reported two additional allelic variants of the CYP3A4 gene (30)
. However, all of the reported polymorphisms are rare in the Asian and Caucasian populations and unlikely to explain the interindividual enzyme variation observed in these populations (28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
. In a small, pilot case-control study conducted during 1996, we found a positive association between breast cancer risk and the ratio of urinary 6ß-OHC:cortisol. To follow up this novel finding, we conducted a case-control study among a subgroup of women who have participated in the Shanghai Breast Cancer Study.
| Materials and Methods |
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Controls were randomly selected from the female general population and frequency-matched to cases by age (5-year intervals). The number of controls in each age-specific stratum was determined in advance according to the age distribution of the incident breast cancer cases reported to the Shanghai Tumor Registry between 19901993. The Shanghai Resident Registry, which keeps registry cards for all of the adult residents in urban Shanghai, was used to randomly select controls. For each age-predetermined control, a registry card identifying a potential control from the same 5-year age group was randomly selected. Only women who lived at the listed address during the study period were eligible. In-person interviews were completed for 1556 (90.2%) of the 1724 eligible controls. Excluded from the study were 168 potential controls because of refusal (n = 166; 9.6%) and death before the interview (n = 2; 0.1%).
A structured questionnaire was used to elicit detailed information on demographic factors, menstrual and reproductive history, hormone use, dietary habits, prior disease history, physical activity, tobacco and alcohol use, weight, and family history of cancer. All of the interviews were tape-recorded for quality control purposes. All of the participants were weighed, and the circumferences of the waist and hip and their sitting and standing heights were determined. Of those who completed the in-person interviews, 2516 (83.1% of cases and 83.8% of controls) donated a blood sample, and 2995 (99.2% of cases and 99.5% of controls) donated a urine sample. All of the specimens were collected in the morning before any meals. To minimize the potential influence of breast cancer and its sequelae on the levels of biomarkers in the blood and urine samples, specimens from breast cancer cases were collected as soon as possible after the initial diagnosis of cancer. Blood and urine samples were collected from about 50% of cases before any cancer therapy. Ascorbic acid (120 mg) was added to the urine (100 ml) to prevent oxidation of labile compounds. The samples were immediately placed in portable insulated cases with ice pads (04°C) and transported to the central laboratory for processing. All of the samples were aliquoted and stored at -70°C within 6 h after collection.
Although the Shanghai Breast Cancer Study used the frequency-matched design, for a subset of cases (n = 300) whose blood and urine samples were collected before any chemotherapy or radiotherapy, we were able to individually match each case to a control on age (± 3 years), menopausal status, and date of sample collection (± 30 days). For the study of the association between urinary cortisol ratios and breast cancer, we included 250 pairs of cases and controls from this substudy using the individually matched design to reduce the costs. This approach also enhanced the comparability of cases and controls and eliminated between-assay variability by assaying samples from each case-control pair in the same batch.
The ratio of urinary 6ß-OHC:cortisol was used as the indicator of CYP3A4 activity (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) . Urinary cortisol levels were determined by a cortisol RIA kit following the manufacturers protocol (DiaSorin, Stillwater, MN). Briefly, 200 µl of urine were extracted with 1 ml of methylene chloride. After phase separation, a 100-µl aliquot from the bottom (methylene chloride) layer was added to tubes in which anti-cortisol rabbit serum was immobilized onto the inner wall. Standards or unknown samples were incubated with 1 ml (0.04 mCi) of cortisol tracer at 37°C for 45 min. After incubation, the contents of the tubes were aspirated, and the tubes were counted in a gamma counter (Packard Cobra). A standard curve was prepared for each run, and all of the assays were performed in duplicate.
The urinary 6ß-OHC was determined by an enzyme immunoassay (Stabiligen, Nancy, France). 6ß-OHC standards or urine samples (10 µl) were added to 96-well microtiter plates containing specific 6ß-OHC antibodies bound to the plate. Next, horseradish peroxidase conjugated to 6ß-OHC was added, and the plates were incubated for 2 h at 25°C in the dark. After discarding the well contents and washing the plates four times with 0.05% Tween 20, the peroxide substrate was added. The color was allowed to develop in the dark for 45 min at 25°C. The reaction was terminated by the addition of H2SO4. The absorbance was read at 492 nm in a Titertek Multiskan plate reader. A standard curve was prepared for each run. All of the assays were performed in triplicate. The coefficients of variation for within-assay variability were 6.26% for cortisol and 5.86% for 6ß-OHC. To eliminate the effect of between-assay variability (5.13% for cortisol and 18.62% for 6ß-OHC) on the study results, the samples for each case-control pair were assayed in the same batch.
Because the data on the urinary 6ß-OHC:cortisol ratios were skewed to high values, we used the Student t test for paired data to compare the mean differences between the cases and controls after a log-transformation of the data (35) . The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to compare the median difference between the cases and controls (35) . To evaluate the strength of the association between the cortisol ratio and breast cancer risk, we performed a categorical analysis. The ORs and 95% CIs for women with intermediate or high cortisol ratios, compared to women with the lowest ratios, were determined using conditional logistic regression (36) . Multivariate analyses were performed to adjust for potential confounding variables. Trend tests were performed using logistic regressions after assigning the score j to the j-th level of the selected variable. All of the statistical analyses were based on two-tailed probabilities.
| Results |
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16); age at menopause (<45,
45); and age at first live birth (<35,
35).
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| Discussion |
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The urinary 6ß-OHC:cortisol ratio has long been used as a noninvasive indicator of hepatic P450 activity (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) . The level of 6ß-OHC is closely correlated with the expression of human hepatic CYP3A4 (6) and is significantly increased by typical CYP3A4 inducers, such as rifampin (6) . However, there is a poor correlation between this index and other indices of hepatic CYP3A4 activity, such as the erythromycin breath test and the dapsone recovery ratio (37) . On the other hand, these two tests also do not correlate with each other. Furthermore, both of them require the administration of the drug probes and repeated sample collections. Hence, it is much more difficult to implement these probes in population-based epidemiological studies than the cortisol ratio test (37) .
The absence of a good correlation among the three indices for CYP3A4 activity may reflect differences in the organs that metabolize erythromycin, dapsone, and cortisol (37) . Erythromycin N-demethylation is primarily limited to the liver, whereas a portion of the 6ß-OHC may be produced in extra-hepatic organs, such as the kidney (37 , 38) . In particular, CYP3A5, the predominant CYP3A isoform found in the renal collecting tubules (38) , has been shown to specifically catalyze cortisol 6ß-hydroxylation (39) . As a result, the urinary 6ß-OHC:cortisol ratios may be a measure of the collective activities of several related enzymes. Because cortisols, like estrogens, are endogenous steroid hormones that are chemically more closely related to estrogens than erythromycin and dapsone, the ratio of 6ß-OHC:cortisol may be a better measure than the other two indices of the combined CYP3A4 and CYP3A5 activities that catalyze estrogen hydroxylation.
Urinary excretion of 6ß-OHC and cortisol fluctuates during the course of the day, a reflection of the circadian rhythm of cortisol secretion. However, the urinary ratios of the two steroids remain constant (2) . In a recent study of 26 women over 28 days, the mean weekly 6ß-OHC:cortisol ratio was found to be very stable over time (40) . Furthermore, the investigators observed no significant differences in the ratios between pre- and postmenopausal women or among premenopausal women over the menstrual cycle (40) . In our study, we also collected a second urine sample from 17 controls about 2 months after their initial urine collection. The cortisol ratios measured from the first and second urine samples were highly correlated (r = 0.79; P < 0.001), indicating that a single measurement of the cortisol ratio reflects the long-term levels of this ratio.
Although no previous studies have reported an association between CYP3A4 activity and breast cancer risk, CYP3A4 phenotypes have been investigated in relationship to cancer of the liver and bladder (41 , 42) . In a hospital-based, case-control study of liver cancer, Ng et al. (41) found that patients with nonresectable hepatocellular carcinoma had a significantly higher level of 6ß-OHC:cortisol ratios than controls. On the other hand, Fleming et al. (42) showed that, based on the dapsone recovery ratios, bladder cancer patients had lower CYP3A4 activities than controls. These findings are biologically plausible, because CYP3A4 has been reported to be involved in the metabolism of aflatoxin, arylamines, and nitrosamines (7, 8, 9 , 19 , 20 , 43) , the presumed carcinogens involved in the initiation of liver and bladder tumors. Finally, Lin et al. (44) recently reported that the mean urinary 6ß-OHC:cortisol ratios were substantially higher in Caucasian women than in their Asian counterparts. This is consistent with the observation of a higher incidence of breast cancer in the former than in the latter population. The mean ratios reported in that study for Asian women were 2.2 to 2.8 (44) , which are very close to the mean of 2.4 observed in our study.
The positive association between urinary cortisol ratios and breast cancer risk may be attributable to the role of CYP3A4 in the 16
-hydroxylation of estrone or activation of mammary carcinogens. Several lines of evidence implicate 16
-hydroxyestrone in breast carcinogenesis (11, 12, 13, 14, 15
, 45, 46, 47, 48)
. First, 16
-hydroxyestrone may induce genotoxic DNA damage through covalent binding to DNA (11
, 14
, 15
, 45)
. Secondly, this genotoxic metabolite is elevated in explant cultures of mammary terminal duct lobular units from breast cancer patients (46)
. Finally, although not yet consistent (47, 48, 49, 50)
, several case-control studies (47, 48, 49)
, including our own study in Shanghai (49)
, have shown that 16
-hydroxyestrone levels are higher in breast cancer patients than in controls. Recent studies (16, 17, 18)
have suggested that CYP3A4 may have a major role in the 16
-hydroxylation of estrone. In particular, Shou et al. (16)
reported that CYP3A4 had at least a 5-fold greater activity in estrone 16
-hydroxylation than CYP1A2, 2B6, 2C6, 2C9, 2C9R114C, and 2E1. Furthermore, a recent study (18)
reported that the hepatic CYP3A4/5 activity was closely correlated with the formation of 16
-hydroxyestrone. Our findings for a positive association between urinary cortisol ratio and breast cancer risk, particularly among those who had risk factors related to endogenous estrogen exposure, are consistent with the hypothesis that elevated synthesis of 16
-hydroxylation estrone may increase the risk of breast cancer.
The stronger association between the cortisol ratio and breast cancer among older rather than younger women might be expected because it is likely that high CYP3A4 activities lead to the development of breast carcinogenesis through a cumulative effect over decades of estrogen exposure on breast tissue. Alternatively, the difference in the strength of the association between pre- and postmenopausal women could be attributable to differences in the predominant estrogens in the two groups. In particular, estrone is relatively unimportant in premenopausal women, although it is the predominant estrogen in postmenopausal women (10
, 11) . Because CYP3A4 catalyzes the 4- and 16
-hydroxylation of estrone, it would be expected that higher activities of this enzyme would have a greater effect in postmenopausal women than in younger women (16, 17, 18)
. Finally, in general, only the mutation of high-penetrance genes, such as BRCA1/2, P53, and ATM, are thought to be important in the etiology of breast cancer among younger women (51)
.
A potential problem with this study is that the urine samples used in the assay were collected after the diagnosis of the cancer. This could have affected the levels of both the urinary cortisol and its metabolite, and thus their ratios could be relatively unchanged. To minimize the potential influence of breast cancer and its sequelae on the levels of urinary analytes, we attempted to collect urine samples as soon as possible after their initial cancer diagnosis. As a result, all of the urine samples from the cases included in this report were collected before any chemotherapy or radiotherapy and within days after initial breast cancer diagnosis. We also analyzed data collected from early stage breast cancer cases and their controls and found a similar positive association between the cortisol ratio and breast cancer risk as observed in all of the subjects combined. Therefore, it is unlikely that the positive association observed in this study can be explained by the effect of breast cancer and related treatment.
In summary, in this study we have shown for the first time that urinary 6ß-OHC:cortisol ratio is a potential biomarker for breast cancer risk, particularly in older women. These findings are biologically plausible and consistent with the role of CYP3A4 in estrogen and carcinogen metabolism.
| Footnotes |
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1 Supported by United States Public Health Service Grants R01CA64277 and R03CA80655. ![]()
2 To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Health Services Research, 6th Floor, Medical Center East, Nashville, TN 37232-8300. ![]()
3 The abbreviations used are: 6ß-OHC, 6ß-hydroxycortisol; CYP3A, cytochrome P450-3A; OR, odds ratio; CI, confidence interval. ![]()
Received 9/22/00; revised 12/20/00; accepted 1/ 5/01.
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