Prognostic Significance of CCNB2 Expression in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Jintao Cao; Shuai Sun; Rui Min; Ran Li; Xingyu Fan; Yuexin Han; Zhenzhong Feng; Nan Li

doi:10.2147/CMAR.S339105

Prognostic Significance of CCNB2 Expression in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Cancer Manag Res. 2021 Dec 31:13:9477-9487. doi: 10.2147/CMAR.S339105. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Jintao Cao^#¹, Shuai Sun^#¹, Rui Min^#², Ran Li³, Xingyu Fan⁴, Yuexin Han⁴, Zhenzhong Feng³, Nan Li^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology, Bengbu Medical College, Bengbu, Anhui Province, 233000, People's Republic of China.
² Department of Pathology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical College, Bengbu Medical College, Bengbu, Anhui Province, 233003, People's Republic of China.
³ Department of Pathology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui Province, 230601, People's Republic of China.
⁴ School of Clinical Medicine, Bengbu Medical College, Bengbu, Anhui Province, People's Republic of China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore potential gene therapy targets for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

Patients and methods: Three gene expression profiles (GSE64790, GSE62931, and GSE38959) from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database were analyzed. The GEO2R analysis tool was used to screen for differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between TNBC and normal tissues, followed by Gene Ontology functional annotation and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analysis of the DEGs. The protein-protein interaction network of DEGs was visualized using Metascape to identify the core genes. Subsequently, transcriptional data for the core genes in patients with breast cancer were investigated in the ONCOMINE database. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was used to evaluate the prognostic value of core gene expression levels in patients with TNBC. Finally, the clinicopathological and long-term follow-up data of 39 patients with TNBC were retrospectively analyzed at the First Affiliated Hospital of the Bengbu Medical College between January 2014 and July 2020. Immunohistochemistry was used to evaluate the expression and subcellular localization of CCNB2 in TNBC tissues.

Results: A total of 66 DEGs were identified between TNBC and normal tissues, including 33 upregulated and 33 downregulated genes in TNBC. Furthermore, a potential protein complex was identified for five core genes. The high expression of these core genes, especially the overexpression of CCNB2, was correlated with a poor prognosis of patients with TNBC. The CCNB2 protein was expressed in the cytoplasm, and its expression was significantly higher in TNBC tissues than that in the adjacent nontumor tissues. Overall survival of patients was significantly correlated with the expression of CCNB2 (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: CCNB2 may play a crucial role in the development of TNBC and has the potential to be used as a prognostic biomarker for TNBC.

Keywords: CCNB2; bioinformatics; immunohistochemistry; overall survival; prognosis; triple-negative breast cancer.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from the Postgraduate Scientific Research Innovation Program of the Bengbu Medical College (Byycx20003), Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation (No.1908085MH275), Bengbu Medical College 512 Talent Cultivation Program (by51202205), and Natural Science Key Project of Bengbu Medical College (2020byzd030).