Comprehensive Transcriptomic Analysis Identifies ST8SIA1 as a Survival-Related Sialyltransferase Gene in Breast Cancer

Abstract

Hypersialylation caused by the overexpression of sialyltransferases (STs) is a common feature in cancer that is associated with several characteristics of tumorigenesis. Thus, identifying cancer-associated STs is critical for cancer therapy. However, ST screening has been frequently conducted in cell line models. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of STs in the clinical database and identified the STs related with the survival of breast cancer patients. RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) data of 496 patients were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas Breast Invasive Carcinoma (TCGA-BRCA). Of the eight mapped STs, <i>ST3GAL5</i>, and <i>ST8SIA1</i> met the acceptable area under the curve (AUC) criteria for overall survival (OS). Using Kaplan-Meier methods, we determined that high expression of <i>ST8SIA1</i> was associated with poor 10-year OS in all patients, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), and non-TNBC patients, and poor disease-free survival (DFS) rates particularly in TNBC. <i>ST8SIA1</i> also had superior AUC values in terms of OS/DFS. High <i>ST8SIA1</i> levels showed a higher risk for poor OS in different groups of patients and a higher risk for poor DFS particularly in TNBC. In summary, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of STs from the clinical database and identified <i>ST8SIA1</i> as a crucial survival-related ST, which might be a potential therapeutic target for breast cancer and TNBC patients.