The expression level of T‐box transcription factor TBX2 in breast cancer and its clinical significance

Objective: Recent studies showed that overexpression of T‐box transcription factor TBX2 in ovarian and prostate cancer tissues is associated with conferred resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs. However, whether TBX2 is overexpressed in breast cancer tissues remains to be elucidated. The present study aimed to determine the level of TBX2 in breast cancer tissues in comparison to normal tissues and to study the association between the level of TBX2 and breast cancer metastasis. Patients and Methods: Breast cancer samples and their adjacent non-tumor tissues were collected from 51 breast cancer patients. Sections from each sample were immune-stained by anti-TBX2 and suitable secondary and tertiary antibodies. TBX2 levels were evaluated in cancerous and non-tumor samples. TBX2 level was also evaluated by Western blotting. The correlation between TBX2 levels and the clinicopathological parameters was statistically tested. Results: Data showed that TBX2 is significantly overexpressed in breast cancer tissues compared with non-tumor adjacent tissues. Furthermore, it showed that TBX2 expression is associated with cancer metastasis and lymph node size. Statistical analysis showed that TBX2 overexpression is a promising biomarker for breast cancer cells with an area under the curve [AUC] of 0.891 [p