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
. 2013 Apr 30:13:217.
doi: 10.1186/1471-2407-13-217.

A comprehensive analysis of Aurora A; transcript levels are the most reliable in association with proliferation and prognosis in breast cancer

Satoko Yamamoto  1 , Mutsuko Yamamoto-Ibusuki, Yutaka Yamamoto, Saori Fujiwara, Hirotaka Iwase
Affiliations

A comprehensive analysis of Aurora A; transcript levels are the most reliable in association with proliferation and prognosis in breast cancer

Satoko Yamamoto et al. BMC Cancer. .

Abstract

Background: Aurora A kinase, a centrosomal serine/threonine kinase which plays an essential role in chromosome segregation during cell division, is commonly amplified and/or over expressed in human malignancies. Aurora A is suggested to be one of the proliferation parameters which is an independent prognostic factor for early invasive breast cancer patients; however the individual clinical or prognostic relevance of this gene has been a matter of debate.

Methods: A comprehensive analysis of Aurora A at the levels of gene expression, gene copy number and protein expression was performed for 278 primary invasive breast cancer patients; and the correlation with clinical outcomes were investigated.

Results: Aurora A gene expression level not only correlated with gene amplification, but was also significantly associated with several clinicopathological parameters and patient prognosis. Patients with higher nuclear grade, negative progesterone receptor status and higher Ki67 expressed higher levels of Aurora A mRNA, which was associated not only with poor relapse-free survival (RFS) but was also found to be a significant multivariate parameter for RFS. Aurora A protein expression was also significantly associated with clinicopathological characteristics; lymph node status, nuclear grade, estrogen receptor status and Ki67, but not with prognosis. By contrast, Aurora A gene amplification correlated with tumor size, nuclear grade and Ki67, and had no prognostic value.

Conclusion: Our data indicate that Aurora A gene expression is an effective tool, which defines both tumor proliferation potency and patient prognosis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Immunohistochemical staining patterns of Aurora A: a negative staining (no staining, <5%); b weakly positive (≤5%, <20%); c moderately positive (≥20%, <50%); d strongly positive (≥50%). (Magnification ×400).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Aurora A mRNA expression and survival. Kaplan-Meier plots of the association of Aurora A mRNA expression with relapse-free survival (RFS) (a) and breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) (b) in the entire cohort.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Aurora A amplification and survival. Kaplan-Meier plots of the association of Aurora A amplification with relapse-free survival (RFS) (a) and breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) (b) in the entire cohort.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Aurora A protein expression and survival. Kaplan-Meier plots of the association of Aurora A protein expression with relapse-free survival (RFS) (a) and breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) (b) in the entire cohort.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Das K, Lorena PD, Ng LK, Shen L, Lim D, Siow WY, Narasimhan K, Teh M, Choolani M, Putti TC. Aurora-A expression, hormone receptor status and clinical outcome in hormone related cancers. Pathology. 2010;42(6):540–546. doi: 10.3109/00313025.2010.508789. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Tanaka T, Kimura M, Matsunaga K, Fukada D, Mori H, Okano Y. Centrosomal kinase AIK1 is overexpressed in invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast. Cancer Res. 1999;59(9):2041–2044. - PubMed
    1. Bischoff JR, Anderson L, Zhu Y, Mossie K, Ng L, Souza B, Schryver B, Flanagan P, Clairvoyant F, Ginther C. A homologue of Drosophila aurora kinase is oncogenic and amplified in human colorectal cancers. EMBO J. 1998;17(11):3052–3065. doi: 10.1093/emboj/17.11.3052. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sen S, Zhou H, Zhang RD, Yoon DS, Vakar-Lopez F, Ito S, Jiang F, Johnston D, Grossman HB, Ruifrok AC. Amplification/overexpression of a mitotic kinase gene in human bladder cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2002;94(17):1320–1329. doi: 10.1093/jnci/94.17.1320. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Yang F, Guo X, Yang G, Rosen DG, Liu J. AURKA and BRCA2 expression highly correlate with prognosis of endometrioid ovarian carcinoma. Mod Pathol. 2011;24(6):836–845. doi: 10.1038/modpathol.2011.44. - DOI - PMC - PubMed