Diagnostic and prognostic value of plasma and tissue ubiquitin-like, containing PHD and RING finger domains 1 in breast cancer patients

Abstract

Ubiquitin-like, containing PHD and RING finger domains 1 (UHRF1) has been reported to play an important role in breast carcinogenesis. This work investigated the correlation of UHRF1 DNA level in plasma with clinical characteristics of breast cancer and its clinical significance in breast cancer diagnosis. The expression of UHRF1 in primary breast cancer tissue was examined by Western blot. The UHRF1 DNA levels in plasma and UHRF1 mRNA expression in tissues were determined by accurate real-time quantitative PCR. The associations of UHRF1 levels with clinical variables were evaluated using standard statistical methods. The UHRF1 DNA in plasma of 229 breast cancer patients showed higher expression than healthy controls, which showed high specificity up to 76.2% at a sensitivity of 79.2%, and was significantly associated with c-erbB2 positive status, cancer stage and lymph node metastasis. High UHRF1 DNA level in plasma was significantly associated with short progression-free survival. The UHRF1 DNA level in plasma is highly correlative with breast cancer and its status and stage, and may be a potential independent diagnostic and prognostic factor for both breast cancer and the survival of breast cancer patients.

Figure 1

Expression of ubiquitin‐like, containing PHD and RING finger domains 1(UHRF1) in MDAB231 cells (1), normal cells (2), breast cancer tissue (3), adjacent tissues (4) and normal breast tissue (5) using β‐actin as a loading control.

Figure 2

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for UHRF1 level in 62 cancer tissues and 24 tissues adjacent to the cancer (1), and 229 patient plasma and 43 healthy plasma samples (2).

Figure 3

Kaplan–Meier survival curves for progression‐free survival based on high (n = 41) and low (n = 15) UHRF1 DNA levels in plasma. The P‐value was determined using the log rank test.