Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011 Aug;137(8):1245-53.
doi: 10.1007/s00432-011-0998-9. Epub 2011 Jun 21.

Elevated expression of USP22 in correlation with poor prognosis in patients with invasive breast cancer

Youxue Zhang  1 , Lei Yao, Xianyu Zhang, Hongfei Ji, Lihong Wang, Shanshan Sun, Da Pang
Affiliations

Elevated expression of USP22 in correlation with poor prognosis in patients with invasive breast cancer

Youxue Zhang et al. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol. 2011 Aug.

Abstract

Purpose: Ubiquitin-specific protease 22 (USP22), a novel deubiquitinating enzyme, has been associated with metastasis, therapy resistance, and cell-cycle progression. The purpose of this study was to investigate the expression level of USP22 in breast samples and to evaluate its clinical significance in breast cancer patients.

Methods: Immunohistochemistry was used to determine the expression of USP22 protein in 31 breast fibroadenoma and 100 breast cancer patients in comparison with 34 normal breast specimens. Furthermore, we analyzed the correlation between the expression of the USP22 protein and various clinicopathologic factors including survival status of patients with breast cancer.

Results: The immunohistochemistry results showed that the expression level of USP22 protein in breast cancer samples was significantly higher than that in breast fibroadenoma and normal breast tissues (P = 0.003 and P = 0.021). Moreover, statistical analysis showed that high USP22 expression was positively related to lymph node metastasis, Her-2, Ki67, and recurrence. Furthermore, it was shown that patients with high USP22 expression had significantly poorer outcome compared with patients with low expression of USP22 for patients with positive lymph nodes. Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that USP22 expression level was an independent prognostic factor for both overall survival and disease-free survival (P = 0.039 and P = 0.041, respectively).

Conclusion: Overexpression of USP22 may contribute to the progression of breast cancer and thus may serve as a new molecular marker to predict the prognosis of breast cancer patients.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Immunohistochemical staining of USP22 protein in breast specimens a high USP22 expression in invasive ductal breast cancer tissues; b, c low USP22 expression in breast fibroadenomas and normal breast specimens, respectively; d Negative control slide with PBS was not positively stained in breast cancer tissues
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Kaplan–Meier curves of the overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) for the invasive breast cancer patients with high and low USP22 expression. P values were obtained by log-rank test. a OS curves of breast cancer patients according to the USP22 immunostaining; b DFS curves of breast cancer patients according to the USP22 immunostaining
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The overall survival curves are significantly separated in different lymph node status (LN). a Patients with positive lymph node (LN+); b patients with negative lymph node (LN−)
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Result of overall survival analyses based on histology grade in patients with low USP22 expression
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Amerik AY, Hochstrasser M (2004) Mechanism and function of deubiquitinating enzymes. Biochim Biophys Acta 1695(1–3):189–207 - PubMed
    1. Berger SL (2007) The complex language of chromatin regulation during transcription. Nature 447(7143):407–412 - PubMed
    1. Bolden JE, Peart MJ, Johnstone RW (2006) Anticancer activities of histone deacetylase inhibitors. Nat Rev Drug Discov 5(9):769–784 - PubMed
    1. Bouchard C, Dittrich O, Kiermaier A, Dohmann K, Menkel A, Eilers M et al (2001) Regulation of cyclin D2 gene expression by the Myc/Max/Mad network: Myc-dependent TRRAP recruitment and histone acetylation at the cyclin D2 promoter. Genes Dev 15(16):2042–2047 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Choi HK, Choi BC, Lee SH, Kim JW, Cha KY, Baek KH (2003) Expression of angiogenesis- and apoptosis-related genes in chorionic villi derived from recurrent pregnancy loss patients. Mol Reprod Dev 66(1):24–31 - PubMed

MeSH terms