Evaluating ZNF217 mRNA Expression Levels as a Predictor of Response to Endocrine Therapy in ER+ Breast Cancer

is a candidate oncogene with a wide variety of deleterious functions in breast cancer. Here, we aimed at investigating in a pilot prospective study the association between mRNA expression levels and the clinical response to neoadjuvant endocrine therapy (ET) in postmenopausal ER-positive (ER+) breast cancer patients. Core surgical biopsy samples before treatment initiation and post-treatment were obtained from 68 patients, and Ki-67 values measured by immunohistochemistry (IHC) were used to identify responders ( = 59) and non-responders ( = 9) after 4 months of ET. We report for the first time that high mRNA expression level measured by RT-qPCR in the initial tumor samples (pre-treatment) is associated with poor response to neoadjuvant ET. Indeed, the clinical positive response rate in patients with low expression levels was significantly higher than that in those with high expression levels ( = 0.027). Additionally, a retrospective analysis evaluating expression levels in primary breast tumor of ER+/HER2-/LN0 breast cancer patients treated with adjuvant ET enabled the identification of poorer responders prone to earlier relapse ( = 0.013), while did not retain any prognostic value in the ER+/HER2-/LN0 breast cancer patients who did not receive any treatment. Altogether, these data suggest that expression might be predictive of clinical response to ET.