Overexpression of LAPTM4B: an independent prognostic marker in breast cancer

Lysosome-associated protein transmembrane 4 beta (LAPTM4B), a novel oncoprotein, has been shown to be overexpressed in several human malignancies. Our purpose was to evaluate the expression of LAPTM4B in breast carcinoma and its significance, which was not previously studied by others.

Through immunohistochemistry, LAPTM4B expression was evaluated in 35 benign breast tumor specimens and 194 breast cancer specimens. The correlation of LAPTM4B expression with clinicopathological parameters was assessed using χ ² analysis. The survival status of patients was analyzed using the Kaplan–Meier and log-rank tests. Cox regression was used for the multivariate analysis of prognostic factors.

The immunohistochemistry results showed that the expression level of LAPTM4B in breast cancer cases was significantly higher than that in benign breast tumor tissues (P < 0.001). Moreover, statistical analysis also showed that high LAPTM4B expression was positively related to TNM stage, lymph node metastasis, and recurrence. Furthermore, it was also shown that patients with high LAPTM4B expression had significantly poorer overall survival and disease-free survival compared with patients with low expression of LAPTM4B (P = 0.019 and P = 0.005, respectively). Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that high LAPTM4B expression level was an independent prognostic factor for both overall survival and disease-free survival of patients with breast cancer (P = 0.041 and P = 0.023, respectively).

Overexpression of LAPTM4B may contribute to the tumor progression and poor prognosis of breast cancer, thus testing the expression of LAPTM4B will be helpful for predicting prognosis in breast cancer.