Upregulation of centromere protein F is linked to aggressive prostate cancers.

Background: Centromere protein F (CENPF) is a key component of the kinetochore complex and plays a crucial role in chromosome segregation and cell cycle progression. Recent work suggests that CENPF upregulation is linked to aggressive tumor features in a variety of malignancies including prostate cancer.

Materials And Methods: Using a highly annotated tissue microarray, we analyzed CENPF protein expression from a cohort of 8,298 prostatectomized patients by immunohistochemistry to study its effect on prostate-specific antigen recurrence-free survival.

Results: CENPF overexpression was found in 53% of cancers, and was linked to higher Gleason grade, advanced pathological tumor stage, accelerated cell proliferation, and lymph node metastasis (<0.0001, each). A comparison with other key molecular features accessible through the microarray revealed strong associations between CENPF overexpression and presence of erythroblast transformation-specific (ETS)-related gene () fusion as well as phosphatase and tensin homolog deletion (<0.0001, each). CENPF overexpression was linked to early biochemical recurrence. A subset analysis revealed that this was driven by the ERG-negative subset (<0.0001). This was independent of established preoperative and postoperative prognostic parameters in multivariate analyses.

Conclusion: The results of our study identify CENPF overexpression as an important mechanism and a potential biomarker for prostate cancer aggressiveness.