Overexpression Of SPHK1 Is Predictive Of Poor Prognosis In Human Breast Cancer

Objective Sphingosine kinase 1(SPHK1),an oncoenzyme,is identified as a biomarker in various cancers and is considered to play an important role in tumor progression.In the present study,we analyzed the expression level of SPHK1 in breast cancer clinical specimens and investigated its correlation with patient survival to clarify the clinical significance of SPHK1 in breast cancer.SPHK1 mRNA expression was higher in breast cancer tissues compared with that in matched adjacent breast tissues in 19 of 32 paired tissue specimens(59.4%).Immunohistochemical analysis of 122 breast cancer cases showed the expression levels of SPHK1 was up-regulated in 64(52.5% of cases)tumor tissues,and higher expression levels of the protein were significantly associated with the presence of lymph node metastasis(p =0.0016),No.of positive lymph nodes(p = 0.0268)and presence of distant metastasis(p =0.0097).Higher SPHK1 protein expression was also associated with Her2 status(p =0.0100),initial symptoms(p =0.0025)and tumor location(p =0.0457).Patients with higher SPHK1 protein expression had both shorter overall survival time and disease free survival time comparing with those with lower SPHK1.Univariate and multivariate analyses indicated that high SPHK1 expression might be a poor prognostic factor.Taken together,these results suggest that SPHK1 might play an important role in breast cancer and may be a predictive factor in patients with breast cancer.