Gene Overexpression Is Associated with Poor Prognosis of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Patients.

Differential expressions of cancer-associated genes, including histone deacetylases (HDACs), were identified in distinctive molecular subtypes of breast cancer. Compared with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, triple-negative (TNBC, ER-PR-HER2-) is the most aggressive form of breast cancer. To determine the association of mRNA expression levels with clinicopathological features and patients' survival with TNBC or ER+PR+HER2- breast cancers. Total RNA was extracted from 61 TNBC and 74 ER+PR+Her2- tumors. Relative gene expression was evaluated by SYBR Green RT-PCR, normalized to glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase. The mRNA expression was defined as high or low, according to receiver operating characteristic analysis. Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses for overall survival were assessed to evaluate the prognostic relevance of overexpression. The overexpression was predominantly found in invasive ductal carcinomas ( = 0.023), high histologic grade ( = 0.007), and high nuclear grade tumors ( = 0.030). TNBC subtypes had a significantly lower mean gene expression compared with ER+PR+HER2- tumors ( = 0.005). However, overexpression predicted unfavorable survival of TNBC patients ( = 0.003). Multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that recurrences (hazard ratio [HR] = 5.432,  = 0.003), and overexpression (HR = 9.287,  = 0.033) persisted as independent prognostic factors for poor survival of TNBC patients. mRNA overexpression is associated with poor survival in patients with TNBC tumors.