Li-Hua Yang,1,* Guo-Zhou Wang,1,* Chao Gao2 

1Department of Breast Tumor Surgery, Huangshi Central Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Hubei Polytechnic University, Edong Healthcare Group, Huangshi, Hubei, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of General Practitioner, Huangshi Central Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Hubei Polytechnic University, Edong Healthcare Group, Huangshi, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Chao Gao, Department of General Practitioner, Huangshi Central Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Hubei Polytechnic University, Edong Healthcare Group, Huangshi, Hubei, 435000, People’s Republic of China, Email gaochaotongxue1987@163.com

Background: The survival rate for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is very low due to its advanced metastatic and aggressive nature, and there is no specific target to improve the survival rate. The expression and clinical signature of neuronal-specific septin-3 (Septin3, SEPT3) in TNBC remain undetermined.
Methods: SEPT3 differential expression in TNBC was detected with the use of bioinformatic approaches based on TCGA and GEO database, which was verified with immunohistochemistry in TNBC tissues. Next, the effect of SEPT3 on survival and the association between SEPT3 expression and clinical characteristics were assessed for TNBC patients. We performed Cox analysis to evaluate whether SEPT3 is an independent predictor for TNBC patients.
Results: SEPT3 was identified as a key differentially expressed gene. SEPT3 was observed to be elevated in 112 TNBC significantly. Increased expression of SEPT3 contributed to an unfavorable prognosis in patients with TNBC. Additionally, SEPT3 was associated with several factors including TNM stage, lymph node metastasis, Ki67 level and histological grade. SEPT3 was determined to be an independent risk factor for TNBC patients through Cox regression analysis.
Conclusion: This study demonstrated that SEPT3 could be a potential disease marker for TNBC patients by bioinformatics analysis and validation in clinical samples.

Keywords: triple-negative breast cancer, STEP3, prognosis, biomarker