Differential Expression Profile of ZFX Variants Discriminates Breast Cancer Subtypes

Background: ZFX is a transcriptional regulator in embryonic stem cells and plays an important role in pluripotency and self-renewal. ZFX is widely expressed in pluripotent stem cells and is down-regulated during differentiation of embryonic stem cells. ZFX has five different variants that encode three different protein isoforms. While several reports have determined the overexpression of ZFX in a variety of somatic cancers, the expression of ZFX-spliced variants in cancer cells is not well-understood.

Methods: We investigated the expression of ZFX variants in a series of breast cancer tissues and cell lines using quantitative PCR.

Results: The expression of ZFX variant 1/3 was higher in tumor tissue compared to marginal tissue. In contrast, the ZFX variant 5 was down-regulated in tumor tissues. While the ZFX variant 1/3 and ZFX variant 5 expression significantly increased in low-grade tumors, ZFX variant 4 was strongly expressed in high-grade tumors, demonstrating lymphatic invasion. In addition, our result revealed a significant association between the HER2 status and the expression of ZFX-spliced variants.

Conclusion: Our data suggest that the expression of ZFX-spliced transcripts varies between different types of breast cancer and may contribute to their tumorigenesis process. Hence, ZFX-spliced transcripts could be considered as novel tumor markers with a probable value in diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy of breast cancer.