Research Paper|Volume 14, Issue 20|pp 8498—8567

Comprehensive analysis of prognostic significance of cadherin (CDH) gene family in breast cancer

Su-Chi Ku^1,^2,³, Hsin-Liang Liu⁴, Che-Yu Su⁴, I-Jeng Yeh^4,⁵, Meng-Chi Yen^4,⁵, Gangga Anuraga^2,⁶, Hoang Dang Khoa Ta², Chung-Chieh Chiao², Do Thi Minh Xuan¹, Fidelia Berenice Prayugo^1,⁷, Wei-Jan Wang^8,⁹, Chih-Yang Wang^1,^2,¹⁰

¹Graduate Institute of Cancer Biology and Drug Discovery, College of Medical Science and Technology, Taipei Medical University, Taipei 11031, Taiwan
²Ph.D. Program for Cancer Molecular Biology and Drug Discovery, College of Medical Science and Technology, Taipei Medical University and Academia Sinica, Taipei 11031, Taiwan
³Department of General Medicine, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei 11031, Taiwan
⁴Department of Emergency Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung 80708, Taiwan
⁵Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung 80708, Taiwan
⁶Department of Statistics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universitas PGRI Adi Buana, Surabaya 60234, Indonesia
⁷International Master/PhD Program in Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei 11031, Taiwan
⁸Department of Biological Science and Technology, Research Center for Cancer Biology, China Medical University, Taichung 406040, Taiwan
⁹Research Center for Cancer Biology, China Medical University, Taichung 40676, Taiwan
¹⁰TMU Research Center of Cancer Translational Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei 11031, Taiwan

* Equal contribution

Received: January 22, 2022Accepted: September 23, 2022Published: October 25, 2022

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204357

Copyright: © 2022 Ku et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Breast cancer is one of the leading deaths in all kinds of malignancies; therefore, it is important for early detection. At the primary tumor site, tumor cells could take on mesenchymal properties, termed the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). This process is partly regulated by members of the cadherin (CDH) family of genes, and it is an essential step in the formation of metastases. There has been a lot of study of the roles of some of the CDH family genes in cancer; however, a holistic approach examining the roles of distinct CDH family genes in the development of breast cancer remains largely unexplored. In the present study, we used a bioinformatics approach to examine expression profiles of CDH family genes using the Oncomine, Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis 2 (GEPIA2), cBioPortal, MetaCore, and Tumor IMmune Estimation Resource (TIMER) platforms. We revealed that CDH1/2/4/11/12/13 messenger (m)RNA levels are overexpressed in breast cancer cells compared to normal cells and were correlated with poor prognoses in breast cancer patients’ distant metastasis-free survival. An enrichment analysis showed that high expressions of CDH1/2/4/11/12/13 were significantly correlated with cell adhesion, the extracellular matrix remodeling process, the EMT, WNT/beta-catenin, and interleukin-mediated immune responses. Collectively, CDH1/2/4/11/12/13 are thought to be potential biomarkers for breast cancer progression and metastasis.