Exonuclease 1 expression is associated with clinical progression, metastasis, and survival prognosis of prostate cancer

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most prevalent malignancy and the second leading cause of cancer‐related deaths in the male population in western countries, and we explored the association between exonuclease 1 (EXO1) expression and clinical progression, metastasis (Met), and survival prognosis of PCa. EXO1 expression of high/low‐metastatic patient‐derived xenografts model was investigated and clinical correlation and prognosis outcomes were validated. EXO1 in high‐metastatic models was significantly increased compared with low‐metastatic lines. In memorial sloan‐kettering cancer center (MSKCC) cohort, EXO1 expression positively correlated with PCa Met, and patients with high EXO1 had poor biochemical recurrence‐free survival in primary PCa cohort. Validation in The Cancer Genome Atlas primary cohort indicated EXO1 expression was significantly associated with lymph node Met and disease‐free survival. The overexpression of EXO1 is significantly associated with PCa poor survival outcome, and is a promising biomarker for PCa, especially for primary PCa. A prospective study is clearly needed to validate these findings. The exonuclease 1 (EXO1) expression of high/low‐metastatic patient‐derived xenografts (PDXs) model was investigated by the approach of quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction (qRT‐PCR). The clinical correlation and prognosis outcomes were validated in MSKCC and The Cancer Genome Atlas PCa clinical cohorts. We found that The overexpression of EXO1 is significantly associated with the PCa progression, metastasis, and poor survival outcome, and it is a promising prognostic predictive biomarker for PCa patients, especially for primary PCa.