STK3 higher expression association with clinical characteristics in intrinsic subtypes of breast cancer invasive ductal carcinoma patients

STK3 has a central role in maintaining cell homeostasis, proliferation, growth, and apoptosis. Previously, we investigated the functional link between STK3/MST2, and estrogen receptor in MCF-7 breast cancer cells. To expand the investigation, this study evaluated STK3’s higher expression and associated genes in breast cancer intrinsic subtypes using publicly available data.

The relationship between clinical pathologic features and STK3 high expression was analyzed using descriptive and multivariate analysis.

Increased STK3 expression in breast cancer was significantly associated with higher pathological cancer stages, and a different expression level was observed in the intrinsic subtypes of breast cancer. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that breast cancer with high STK3 had a lower survival rate in IDC patients than that with low STK3 expression (p < 0.05). The multivariate analysis unveiled a strong correlation between STK3 expression and the survival rate among IDC patients, demonstrating hazard ratios for lower expression. In the TCGA dataset, the hazard ratio was 0.56 (95% CI 0.34–0.94, p = 0.029) for patients deceased with tumor, and 0.62 (95% CI 0.42–0.92, p = 0.017) for all deceased patients. Additionally, in the METABRIC dataset, the hazard ratio was 0.76 (95% CI 0.64–0.91, p = 0.003) for those deceased with tumor. From GSEA outcomes 7 gene sets were selected based on statistical significance (FDR < 0.25 and p < 0.05). Weighted Sum model (WSM) derived top 5% genes also have higher expression in basal and lower in luminal A in association with STK3.

By introducing a novel bioinformatics approach that combines GSEA and WSM, the study successfully identified the top 5% of genes associated with higher expression of STK3.