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Down-regulated ECRG4 expression in breast cancer and its correlation with tumor progression and poor prognosis - A short Report

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Abstract

Background

Recently, we identified the esophageal carcinoma related gene 4 (ECRG4) as a novel candidate tumor suppressor gene and a promising therapeutic target in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). In addition, we found that reduced ECRG4 expression in NPC was associated with promoter hypermethylation. The aim of the current study was to assess the expression status of the ECRG4 protein in breast cancer and to clarify its clinicopathological significance and potential prognostic implications.

Methods

Western blotting was used to examine ECRG4 protein levels in 20 paired breast cancer tissues and adjacent noncancerous tissues. In addition, we performed ECRG4 immunohistochemistry on 113 clinicopathologically well-characterized breast cancer samples and assessed putative associations between its expression and overall patient survival rates.

Results

We found that ECRG4 protein expression was significantly reduced in the breast cancer tissues compared to the noncancerous tissues. Clinicopathological analyses revealed that loss of ECRG4 protein expression, observed in 41.6 % (47/113) of the primary breast cancer tissues tested, was significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis (P = 0.026), advanced tumor stage (P = 0.042) and unfavorable overall survival (P = 0.004). Additional multivariate analyses revealed that ECRG4 protein expression may serve as an independent prognostic factor for the prediction of patient survival (P = 0.033).

Conclusion

Our data suggest that loss of ECRG4 protein expression may be involved in tumor progression and may serve as a prognostic biomarker for breast cancer.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the Science and Technology Planning Project of Henan Province, China (142102310464), the Key Research Foundation of Higher Education of Henan Province, China (15B320003), the Annual Natural Science Foundation of Luohe Medical College (2015-S-LMC02), the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (2014CFC1154), the Foundation of Medical College of Hubei University of Arts and Science (YXKY 201402) and the Scientific Research Foundation for Doctoral Program of Hubei University of Arts and Science (X. Qin).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Pathological Examination and Research Center, Luohe Medical College, Luohe, 462002, China

      Yanjie You

    2. Department of Pharmacy, Luohe Medical College, Luohe, 462002, China

      Yanjie You

    3. Luohe Key Laboratory of Medical Bioengineering, Luohe Medical College, 148 Daxue-Road, Luohe, 462002, China

      Yanjie You & Fei Wang

    4. Bioengineering Laboratory, Luohe Medical College, Luohe, 462002, China

      Fei Wang

    5. Department of Radiation Oncology, The Second People’s Hospital of Neijiang City, Neijiang, 641000, China

      Haijun Li

    6. Medical College, Hubei University of Arts and Science, Xiangyang, 441053, China

      Xin Qin

    7. Department of Teaching and Training, Bethune Military Medical NCO Academy of PLA, Shijiazhuang, 050081, China

      Yonggang Ran

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    1. Yanjie You
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    Correspondence to Fei Wang.

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    Yanjie You and Haijun Li have contributed equally to this work.

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    You, Y., Li, H., Qin, X. et al. Down-regulated ECRG4 expression in breast cancer and its correlation with tumor progression and poor prognosis - A short Report. Cell Oncol. 39, 89–95 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13402-015-0260-6

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