RESUMO
The minichromosome maintenance (MCM) protein family plays a key role in eukaryotic DNA replication and has been confirmed to be associated with the occurrence and progression of many tumors. However, the expression levels, functions, and prognostic values of MCMs in breast cancer (BC) have not been clearly and systematically explained. In this article, we studied the transcriptional levels of MCMs in BC based on the Oncomine database. Kaplan-Meier plotter was used to analyze prognostic value of MCMs in human BC patients. Furthermore, we constructed a MCM coexpression gene network and performed functional annotation analysis through DAVID to reveal the functions of MCMs and coexpressed genes. The data showed that the expression of MCM2-8 and MCM10 but not MCM1 and MCM9 was upregulated in BC. Kaplan-Meier plotter analysis revealed that high transcriptional levels of MCM2, MCM4-7, and MCM10 were significantly related to low relapse-free survival (RFS) in BC patients. In contrast, high levels of MCM1 and MCM9 predicted high RFS for BC patients. This study suggests that MCM2, MCM4-7, and MCM10 possess great potential to be valuable prognostic biomarkers for BC and that MCM1 and MCM9 may serve as potential treatment targets for BC patients.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND Epithelial splicing regulatory proteins (ESRPs), including ESRP1 and ESRP2, are important proteins for alternative splicing of mRNAs and are reported to promote or inhibit the progression of some tumors. However, the effects of ESRPs in breast cancer are still unknown. MATERIAL AND METHODS In this study, we detected the transcriptional level and alterations of ESRP1 in patients with breast cancer based on the Oncomine, Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis, Gene Expression-Based Outcome for Breast Cancer Online, and cBioPortal databases. Using immunohistochemistry and quantitative polymerase chain reaction, the expression pattern of ESRP1 in breast cancer was analyzed. Analysis of the clinicopathological characteristics and function of ESRP1 in breast cancer were actualized through the University of Alabama Cancer database and Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery. Using the Kaplan-Meier plotter, the prognostic values of ESRP1 in patients with breast cancer were analyzed. The Encyclopedia of RNA Interactomes database was used to predict miRNAs that regulated ESRP1. RESULTS We found that ESRP1 was significantly overexpressed in patients with breast cancer, compared with patients without breast cancer, and had statistically significant clinicopathological characteristics. Kaplan-Meier plotter analysis indicated that the elevated expression of ESRP1 was associated with poor prognosis in patients with breast cancer. Furthermore, hsa-miR-181c-5p was identified to be potentially involved in the regulation of ESRP1. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that ESRP1 is a valuable target for the precise treatment of breast cancer and a potential biomarker for the prognosis of patients with breast cancer.
