Differential expression profile of ZFX variants discriminates breast cancer subtypes

ABSTRACT

Background: ZFX is a transcriptional regulator in embryonic stem cells and plays an important role in pluripotency and self-renewal. ZFXis widely expressed in pluripotent stem cells and is down-regulated during differentiation of embryonic stem cells. ZFX has five different variants that encode three different protein isoforms. While several reports have determined the overexpression of ZFX in a variety of somatic cancers, the expression of ZFX-spliced variants in cancer cells is not well-understood