Purpose: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is more than a single disease. Identifying biomarkers to further subdivide TNBC patients with distinct outcome is of great importance. It has been reported that single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in Aurora kinase A (AURKA) or Aurora kinase B (AURKB) are associated with the risk and survival of several cancers. But till now, there is no research about these polymorphisms in TNBC patients.
Materials and methods: In this study, we investigated the association between polymorphisms in AURKA or AURKB gene and prognosis of TNBC patients treated with taxane-based adjuvant chemotherapy. A total of 273 TNBC patients were enrolled. Haploview 4.2 software was used to identify Tag SNPs. Genotyping was conducted using the MassARRAY MALDI-TOF system.
Results: We found that AURKA rs6099128 GG genotype carriers had significantly worse overall survival (OS) than TT+ TG genotype carriers (P = 0.003, HR = 12.499, 95% CI = 2.357-66.298). AURKB rs11651993 TT genotype carriers had better disease-free survival (DFS) than TC + CC genotype carriers (P = 0.018, HR = 1.876, 95% CI = 1.116-3.154). AURKB rs2289590 CC genotype carriers had worse DFS than CA + AA genotype carriers (P = 0.021, HR = 0.536, 95% CI = 0.315-0.912). After subgroup analysis, rs11651993 TC + CC genotype predicted worse DFS in subgroups of age ≤ 50, post-menopausal, grade unknown (UK), tumor size >2 cm, and lymph node negative. Rs2289590 CA + AA genotype could predict favorable DFS in pre-menopausal, grade 3 and lymph node-positive patients.
Conclusion: We first demonstrated that polymorphisms in AURKA or AURKB gene might predict the OS or DFS of TNBC patients treated with taxane-based adjuvant chemotherapy.
Keywords: Aurora kinase; TNBC; polymorphism; prognosis.