Clinicopathological significance and biological role of TCF21 mRNA in breast cancer

Abstract

TCF21 is known to function as a tumor suppressor and deregulated in several types of cancers; however, its role in breast cancer remains poorly understood. The aim of this study was to examine the expression of TCF21 messenger RNA (mRNA) in breast cancer and evaluate its clinical significance and biological role in tumor progression. TCF21 mRNA expression was analyzed in breast cancer cell lines and tissues by qRT-PCR. Overexpression approach was used to investigate the biological functions of TCF21 mRNA in breast cancer cell line (MDA-MB-231). A notably lower level of TCF21 mRNA expression was found in breast cancer cell lines and tissues. Furthermore, the low expression of TCF21 mRNA was associated with large tumor size and positive lymph node metastasis. Functional analysis showed that overexpression of TCF21 mRNA inhibited cell proliferation and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of MDA-MB-231. In conclusion, our data provided the first evidence that TCF21 mRNA is significantly downregulated in breast cancer cell lines and tissues and regulates breast cancer cell proliferation and EMT. Thus, TCF21 may act as a potential therapeutic target for breast cancer intervention.

TCF21 functions as a tumor suppressor in colorectal cancer through inactivation of PI3K/AKT signaling

“…Moreover, the Kaplan–Meier survival analysis demonstrates that low expression of TCF21 is an independent prognostic factor for poor survival in patients with ccRCC 4,15. Emerging evidence also demonstrates that hypermethylation of TCF21 is observed in breast cancer, gastric cancer and head-and-neck squamous cell carcinoma,2,5,16,17 which is in line with our previous results on CRC,7 indicating that aberrant methylation is an important reason for the downregulation of the expression of TCF21 and may be associated with tumorigenesis in multiple types of cancer.…”

“…TCF21 , located in 6q23, is known to function as a tumor suppressor and is deregulated in several types of cancers, including breast cancer, gastric cancer and clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) 2–5. The loss of function of TCF21 is associated with epigenetic alterations in different types of human cancers.…”

Down-regulation of TCF21 by hypermethylation induces cell proliferation, migration and invasion in colorectal cancer

“…Loss or reduced expression of TCF21 has been found in different types of human cancer [8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15], and many of which are due to promoter hypermethylation. For example, TCF21 promoter is frequently methylated in the early stage of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which makes TCF21 as a potential candidate methylation biomarker for early-stage NSCLC screening [10].…”

TCF21genetic polymorphisms and breast cancer risk in Chinese women

“…Recently, TCF21 has been identified as a tumor suppressor and inactivated in several types of cancer [8–11]. For instance, TCF21 was reported to be frequently silenced in colorectal cancer (CRC) cells and tissues.…”

“…Restoration of TCF21 expression inhibited CRC cell proliferation, promoted apoptosis and suppressed cell invasion and migration [8]. In addition, TCF21 expression was downregulated in most breast cancer tissues, and TCF21 overexpression could inhibit the proliferation of human breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231 [11]. It is well-known that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in cancer-related genes may affect gene expression through different mechanisms depending on their locations.…”