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. 2025 Feb 10;52(1):216.
doi: 10.1007/s11033-025-10299-4.

Decoding gene expression profiles of Hippo signaling pathway components in breast cancer

Hunayna M Bhavnagari  1   2 , Franky D Shah  3
Affiliations

Decoding gene expression profiles of Hippo signaling pathway components in breast cancer

Hunayna M Bhavnagari et al. Mol Biol Rep. .

Abstract

Introduction: The Hippo signaling pathway is an evolutionarily conserved, tumor suppressor, stem cell pathway. This is the very less explored pathway in Breast Cancer. It is a crucial regulator of several biological processes, such as organ size, differentiation, tissue homeostasis, cellular proliferation, and stemness. Interestingly, deregulation of this pathway leads to tumorigenesis. Hence, the present study aims to identify the role of the Hippo signaling pathway in Breast Cancer.

Materials and methods: The mRNA expression of the Hippo signaling pathway molecules was evaluated in 120 pre-therapeutic patients by quantitative real-time PCR. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS 23. The association between the gene expression and clinicopathological parameters was analyzed by the paired sample t-test, and Pearson chi-square test. ROC curve analysis was carried out using Med Cal. A p-value of ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: The hippo signaling pathway contains 10 core components i.e.SAV1, MOB1A, MOB1B, MST1, MST2, LATS1, LATS2, YAP, TAZ, and TEAD1 which were downregulated in malignant tissues as compared to adjacent normal tissue in breast cancer. In the correlation of hippo signaling pathway molecules with clinico pathological parameters, only LATS1, MST1, and SAV1 were found to be significantly negatively associated with stages of Breast Cancer. MOB1B was found to be significantly positively correlated with stages of Breast Cancer. ROC curve analysis of YAP, TAZ, LATS2, and TEAD showed significant discrimination between adjacent normal and malignant tissue.

Conclusion: In the current study, all the molecules of the hippo signaling pathway i.e. YAP, TAZ, LATS1, LATS2, MST1, MST2, SAV1, MOB1, MOB1B, TEAD1 were downregulated in BC suggesting the activation of hippo pathway which played a significant role in tumor suppression.

Keywords: Breast cancer; Clinico pathological parameter; Hippo signaling pathway; Real-Time PCR; TAZ; YAP.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethical approval: This study was approved by the GCRI/GCS Ethics Committee-BHR, The Gujarat Cancer and Research Institute, Asarwa, Ahmedabad 380016. GCRI/GCS Ethics Committee-BHR Reference number-EC/BHR/04/2021. Consent to participate: An informed consent was obtained from all the subjects prior to their enrolment in the study. Consent to publish: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

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