[Expressions and Clinical Significance of Autophagy-related Genes ATG2B, ATG4D, ATG9B in Breast Carcinoma].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the expressions and clinical significance of autophagy-related gene 2B (ATG2B), autophagy-related gene 4D (ATG4D), autophagy-related gene 9B (ATG9B) in breast cancer cell lines and breast cancer.

METHODS: Cancer Browser screening was applied to study the differential expressions of ATG2B, ATG4D, ATG9B genes in breast cancer. Quantitative Real-time PCR was used to measure the expressions of these three genes in human breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-435S and ZR-75-30) as well as 83 cases of breast cancer samples with paired normal breast tissues. The relationships between the expressions of these genes and clinicopathological characteristics were further analyzed.

RESULTS: Cancer Browser screening found abnormal expressions of ATG2B, ATG4D, ATG9B in breast cancer (P = 0.015, P = 0.028, P = 0.040). All four breast cancer cell lines expressed ATG2B, ATG4D, ATG9B, and the expression of ATG2B, ATG9B was significantly lower than positive control (P < 0.001), but ATG4D expression was higher than positive control (P < 0.001). The expressions of ATG2B, ATG4D, ATG9B in breast cancer were all lower than those in the adjacent normal tissues (P < 0.001, P = 0.031, P < 0.001). Furthermore, the expression of ATG2B was correlated with ER (r = 0.949, P = 0.015), and the expression of ATG4D was related to age (r = -0.449, P = 0.005), the expression of ATG9B was correlated to lymph node metastasis and cytokeratin 5/6 status (r = 0.339, P = 0.043; r = 0.533, P = 0.043).

CONCLUSION: ATG2B, ATG4D, ATG9B genes shows low expressions in breast cancer, which may become new molecular markers for the prognosis of breast cancer.