Overexpression of PTK6 predicts poor prognosis in bladder cancer patients.

Protein tyrosine kinase 6 (PTK6) is a non-receptor tyrosine kinase and works as an oncogene in various cancers. Recently, PTK6 has been used as a therapeutic target for breast cancer patients in a clinical study. However, the prognostic value of PTK6 in bladder cancer (BC) remains vague. Therefore, we retrieved 3 independent investigations of Oncomine database and found that PTK6 is highly expressed in BC tissues compared with corresponding normal controls. Similar results were also observed in clinical specimens at both mRNA and protein levels. Immunohistochemical analysis indicated that PTK6 overexpression was highly related to the T classification, N classification, grade, recurrence, and poor prognosis of BC patients. Furthermore, we demonstrated that when PTK6 expression was knocked down by siRNAs, cell proliferation and migration were considerably inhibited in BC cell lines T24 and EJ. By these approaches, we are intended to elucidate PTK6 may be a reliable therapeutic target in BC and might benefit from PTK6 inhibitors in the future.