FABP7 is a potential biomarker to predict response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer

Abstract

Background: Early prediction of response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is critical in choosing appropriate chemotherapeutic regimen for patients with locally advanced breast cancer. Herein, we sought to identify potential biomarkers to predict the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer patients. Methods: Three genomic profiles acquired by microarray analysis from subjects with or without residual tumors after NAC downloaded from the GEO database were used to screen the differentially expressed genes (DEGs). An array of public databases, including ONCOMINE, cBioportal, Breast Cancer Gene Expression Miner v4.0, and the Kaplan Meir-plotter, etc., were used to evaluate the potential functions, related signaling pathway, as well as prognostic values of FABP7 in breast cancer. Anti-cancer drug sensitivity assay, real-time PCR, flow cytometry and western-blotting assays were used to investigate the function of FABP7 in breast cancer cells and examine the relevant mechanism. Results: Two differentially expressed genes, including FABP7 and ESR1, were identified to be potential indicators of response to anthracycline and taxanes for breast cancer. FABP7 was associated with better chemotherapeutic response, while ESR1 was associated with poorer chemotherapeutic effectiveness. Generally, the expression of FABP7 was significantly lower in breast cancer than normal tissue samples. FABP7 mainly high expressed in ER-negative breast tumor and might regulate cell cycle to enhance chemosensitivity. Moreover, elevated FABP7 expression increased the percentage of cells at both S and G2/M phase in MDA-MB-231-ADR cells, and decreased the percentage of cells at G0/G1 phase, as compared to control group. Western-blotting results showed that elevated FABP7 expression could increase Skp2 expression, while decrease CDH1 and p27kip1 expression in MDA-MB-231-ADR cells. In addition, FABP7 was correlated to longer recurrence-free survival (RFS) in BC patients with ER-negative subtype of BC treated with chemotherapy. Conclusion: FABP7 is a potential favorable biomarker and predicts better response to NAC in breast cancer patients. Future study on the predictive value and detail molecular mechanisms of FABP7 in contribution to chemosensitivity in breast cancer is warranted.

The target E2F family gene PTTG1 for prediction of distant relapse-free survival in breast cancer patients receiving taxane and anthracycline-based NACT

“…However, in the past decade, the data was provided by public databases without cost, which led to the development of high-throughput sequencing at a high rate of speed, by minging TCGA, GEO, GTEx, CCLE and other databases [28][29][30][31][32]. High-throughput genomic studies provided cutting-edge sights into the molecular mechanisms and identifed new potential targets of breast cancer [33][34][35][36]. Nevertheless, using a single biomarker for predicting often relatively lower predictive effects, so a risk model for predicting the OS and DRFS OF patients [37][38][39][40][41][42][43] and a nomogram were popular which showed superior predictive effects as a better alternative [18, [44][45][46].…”