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Clinical Trial
. 2021 Feb 12;22(4):1820.
doi: 10.3390/ijms22041820.

The BIRC Family Genes Expression in Patients with Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Anna Makuch-Kocka  1 , Janusz Kocki  2 , Anna Brzozowska  3 , Jacek Bogucki  4 , Przemysław Kołodziej  5 , Bartosz J Płachno  6 , Anna Bogucka-Kocka  5
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

The BIRC Family Genes Expression in Patients with Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Anna Makuch-Kocka et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

The BIRC (baculoviral IAP repeat-containing; BIRC) family genes encode for Inhibitor of Apoptosis (IAP) proteins. The dysregulation of the expression levels of the genes in question in cancer tissue as compared to normal tissue suggests that the apoptosis process in cancer cells was disturbed, which may be associated with the development and chemoresistance of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). In our study, we determined the expression level of eight genes from the BIRC family using the Real-Time PCR method in patients with TNBC and compared the obtained results with clinical data. Additionally, using bioinformatics tools (Ualcan and The Breast Cancer Gene-Expression Miner v4.5 (bc-GenExMiner v4.5)), we compared our data with the data in the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. We observed diverse expression pattern among the studied genes in breast cancer tissue. Comparing the expression level of the studied genes with the clinical data, we found that in patients diagnosed with breast cancer under the age of 50, the expression levels of all studied genes were higher compared to patients diagnosed after the age of 50. We observed that in patients with invasion of neoplastic cells into lymphatic vessels and fat tissue, the expression levels of BIRC family genes were lower compared to patients in whom these features were not noted. Statistically significant differences in gene expression were also noted in patients classified into three groups depending on the basis of the Scarff-Bloom and Richardson (SBR) Grading System.

Keywords: BIRC family genes; gene expression regulation; inhibitors of apoptosis proteins; triple negative breast cancer.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Average expression level of the tested BIRC family genes in patients with TNBC (a) and comparison of BIRC1 (b), BIRC2 (c), BIRC3 (d), BIRC4 (e), BIRC5 (f), BIRC6 (g), BIRC7 (h) gene expression in normal tissues and breast cancer patients obtained using the Ualcan online tool. No information was found in the TCGA database on the level of BIRC8 gene expression (i) in patients with breast cancer (*statistically significant).
Figure 1
Figure 1
Average expression level of the tested BIRC family genes in patients with TNBC (a) and comparison of BIRC1 (b), BIRC2 (c), BIRC3 (d), BIRC4 (e), BIRC5 (f), BIRC6 (g), BIRC7 (h) gene expression in normal tissues and breast cancer patients obtained using the Ualcan online tool. No information was found in the TCGA database on the level of BIRC8 gene expression (i) in patients with breast cancer (*statistically significant).
Figure 2
Figure 2
The results of the correlation analysis of the expression values of the BIRC family genes in TNBC (a) and the correlation analysis of the expression values of the BIRC family genes in BC obtained using the Breast Cancer Gene-Expression Miner v4.5 online tool (r-Pearson correlation coefficient) (b) (* statistically significant).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mean expression level (logRQ) of the BIRC1, BIRC2, BIRC3, BIRC4 (a), BIRC5, BIRC6, BIRC7, BIRC8 (b) genes in breast cancer tissue in groups depending on the patients age (≤50 years, >50 years). * The significance level of the U Mann–Whitney test.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Mean expression level (logRQ) of the BIRC1, BIRC2, BIRC3, BIRC4 (a), BIRC5, BIRC6, BIRC7, BIRC8 (b) genes in breast cancer tissue in groups depending on the lymphovascular invasion. * The significance level of the U Mann–Whitney test.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Mean expression level (logRQ) of the BIRC1, BIRC2, BIRC3, BIRC4 (a), BIRC5, BIRC6, BIRC7, BIRC8 (b) genes in breast cancer tissue in groups depending on the cancer cell invasion of the fat tissue. * The significance level of the U Mann–Whitney test.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Mean values of expression of the studied genes in patients classified into T1, T2, T3 groups by tumor size. Metastases to the regional lymph nodes.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Mean values of expression of the studied genes in patients classified into pN0, pN1, pN2, pN3 groups by the metastases to the regional lymph nodes.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Mean values of expression of the studied genes in patients classified into SBR1, SBR2, SBR3 groups (criterion—tumor grade according to the Scarff-Bloom and Richardson (SBR) grading system).
Figure 9
Figure 9
Survival curves (from the Kaplan–Meier Plotter) obtained using the Ualcan online tool representing evaluating the prognostic significance of BIRC1 (NAIP) (a), BIRC2 (b), BIRC3 (c), BIRC4 (XIAP) (d), BIRC5 (e), BIRC6 (f), BIRC7 (g) on patients with different molecular types of breast cancer.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Survival curves (from the Kaplan–Meier Plotter) obtained using the Ualcan online tool representing evaluating the prognostic significance of BIRC1 (NAIP) (a), BIRC2 (b), BIRC3 (c), BIRC4 (XIAP) (d), BIRC5 (e), BIRC6 (f), BIRC7 (g) on patients with different molecular types of breast cancer.
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