Decreased CDK10 expression correlates with lymph node metastasis and predicts poor outcome in breast cancer patients - a short report.

BACKGROUND

Cyclin-dependent kinase 10 (CDK10) has recently been identified as a tumor suppressor and, concordantly, its encoding gene has frequently been found to be inactivated in various human cancers. Here, we examined the expression status of CDK10 in a panel of primary human breast cancers and evaluated its correlation with clinicopathological parameters and clinical outcome.

METHODS

Western blotting was used to assess CDK10 protein levels in 20 paired breast cancer tissues and adjacent noncancerous tissues. In addition, immunohistochemistry was performed in 128 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tumor tissues. Associations of CDK10 expression with various clinicopathological parameters were evaluated and Kaplan-Meier survival analyses and Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate its effect on patient survival.

RESULTS

We found that CDK10 protein expression was markedly decreased in cancer tissues compared to adjacent noncancerous tissues. Immunohistochemistry revealed decreased CDK10 levels in 65/128 (50.8 %) of the primary breast cancer tissues tested. These decreased levels were found to be significantly associated with lymph node metastasis (P = 0.003), advanced tumor stage (P < 0.001) and unfavorable overall survival (P < 0.001). Furthermore, multivariate analyses indicated that CDK10 expression may serve as an independent prognostic factor for survival (P = 0.001).

CONCLUSION

Down-regulated CDK10 expression frequently occurs in breast cancers and correlates with disease progression and poor survival. CDK10 may serve as a prognostic biomarker for breast cancer.