ABSTRACT
@#Objective: To detect the expression of GRHL2 (grainyhead-like-2) in breast cancer tissues and to explore its correlation with clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of breast cancer (BC) patients，aiming to find new therapeutic target for breast cancer. Method: A total of 88 pairs of BC tissues and corresponding para-cancerous tissues from patients with primary BC that treated and pathologically confirmed at the Second Department of General Surgery, Xinxiang Central Hospital from January 2010 to January 2017 were collected for this study. The expression of GRHL2 in BC tissues and para-cancerous tissues was examined with IHC, and the association between GRHL2 and clinicopathological characteristics of BC patients was analyzed. Moreover, the correlation between GRHL2 and prognosis of BC patients was investigated by analyzing TCGA clinic data for BC. Result: The expression of GRHL2 was significantly higher in BC tissues (75.00%) compared with para-cancerous tissues (36.36%) (P<0.01); Based on the results of GRHL2 expression in 114 cases of normal breast tissues and 1 097 cases of primary breast cancer tissues in TCGA database, the expression of GRHL2 in primary BC tissues was significantly higher than that in normal breast tissues (P<0.01). GRHL2 expression was associated with BC TNM stage,histological grade, HER2 status and lymphnode metastasis status (all P<0.05); TCGA database showed that the RFS of 1 979 BC patients with high GRHL2 expression was significantly shorter than that of the 1 972 cases of BC patients with low GRHL2 expression (HR=1.24, 95%CI:1.11-1.38, P<0.01); GRHL2 expression exerted no significant effect on RFS of TNBC patients or ER+ BC patients (TNBC: HR=1.30，95%CI: 0.89-1.88，P=0.170; ER+: HR=1.17, 95%CI:0.76-1.78， P=0.470); however, the RFS of HER2+ BC patients with high GRHL2 expression was significantly shorter than that of HER2+ BC patients with low GRHL2 expression (HR=1.72, 95%CI:1.11-2.68, P=0.015） . Conclusion：Expression level of GRHL2 was up-regulated in BC tissues, and was associated with BC TNM stage, histological grade, HER2 status and the lymphnode metastasis status. GRHL2 plays an important role in the generation and development of BC, indicating poor prognosis.