title: Hepatoma upregulated protein expression is involved in the pathogenesis of human breast carcinogenesis.
abstract: In the last decade, the overexpression of hepatoma upregulated protein (HURP) has been reported in hepatocellular carcinoma, adrenocortical tumors and urogenital carcinoma. However, the role of HURP in breast cancer remains unknown. In the present study, a comprehensive analysis was performed to examine the HURP expression level in 43 breast cancer tumor samples and paired adjacent normal tissues. The correlation between the HURP expression level and the clinicopathological characteristics was evaluated. The role of HURP in breast cancer was investigated by quantitative polymerase chain reaction, western blot analysis and cell proliferation assays. HURP expression was found to be significantly increased in the breast cancer samples. The HURP expression level was higher in the tumors with advanced-grade metastasis and was strongly associated with tumor-node-metastasis staging (P=0.003). Transfection and cell proliferation assays suggested that the suppression of HURP expression or the interference in HURP activity in the breast cancer cells inhibited cell proliferation significantly. These data suggest that HURP is associated with the degree of malignancy and the proliferation of breast cancer. HURP could be a tumor biomarker for prognosis and a potential therapeutic drug target for human breast cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610072, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610072, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Qiu-Jun
authors.initials: QJ
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610072, P.R. China.
authors.forename: DA
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610072, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Xian-Yao
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610072, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Ding
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Xiong
authors.affiliation: Department of Thyroid and Breast Surgery, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610072, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Hong-Jiang
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610072, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Chang-Long
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Li
keywords: breast carcinogenesis; cell proliferation; hepatoma upregulated protein expression