expression correlates with hormone receptor status in breast cancer.

Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequently diagnosed malignant tumor in women worldwide, and the development of new molecules associated with BC is essential for the management of this disease. RAS and EF-hand domain-containing () encodes the GTPase enzyme that belongs to the Rab family. Although the effects of this gene have been reported in several malignant tumor types, the role of in BC has not been completely elucidated. The aim of the present study was to investigate the importance of expression in BC. mRNA expression levels were evaluated in BC and non-cancerous mammary cell lines. The association between mRNA expression levels and clinicopathological factors in 167 patients with BC were then determined. Among the 13 examined BC cell lines, ER-negative/HER2-negative cell lines expressed lower mRNA levels, when compared with the other examined cell lines (P=0.014). Of the 167 patients examined, patients with negative hormone receptor status exhibited significantly lower mRNA expression levels (P<0.001). In addition low expression in BC tissues was associated with negative estrogen receptor status (P<0.001), negative progesterone receptor status (P<0.001), and triple-negative status (P<0.001). Additionally, although the differences were not statistically significant, patients with low expression levels exhibited poorer disease-free survival (P=0.123) and overall survival (P=0.086) than other patients. The results of the present study indicate that mRNA expression levels are associated with hormone receptor status in BC.