Tripartite motif containing 28 (TRIM28) is a transcriptional regulator acting as an essential corepressor for Krüppel-associated box zinc finger domain-containing proteins in multiple tissue and cell types. An increasing number of studies have investigated the function of TRIM28; however, its prognostic value in breast cancer (BC) remains unclear. In the present study, the expression of TRIM28 was identified to be significantly higher in cancerous compared with healthy tissue samples. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that TRIM28 expression was significantly correlated with several clinicopathological characteristics of patients with BC, such as p53 mutation, tumor recurrence and Elston grade of the tumor. In addition, a protein-protein interaction network was created to illustrate the interactions of TRIM28 with other proteins. The prognostic value of TRIM28 in patients with BC was investigated using the Kaplan-Meier Plotter database, which revealed that high expression of TRIM28 is a predictor of poor prognosis in patients with BC. In conclusion, the results of the present study indicate that TRIM28 provides a survival advantage to patients with BC and is a novel prognostic biomarker, in addition to being a therapeutic target for the treatment of BC.
Keywords: breast cancer; prognostic marker; prognostic value; therapeutic target; tripartite motif 28; tumor protein p53.