Expression of STAT family and its potency to prognosis in uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma

Abstract

Abstract Purpose Signal Transducer and Activators of Transcription (STAT) family is a full set of transcription factors, acting a pivotal role in normal physiological and pathological process. Evidence manifests these transcription factors are involved in tumorigenesis of various cancers including uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC). Whereas, the differential expression pattern and prognostic value of individual STAT remain to be elucidated in UCEC. Methods and results In this study, the data of expression (HTSeq-FPKM) and data of clinical pathology of UCEC patients and normal samples of endometrium were downloaded via the data portal of TCGA.Based on TCGA database, STAT1 was increased, conversely STAT3/5A/5B/6 were decreased in UCEC patients. Furthermore, expressions of STAT1 and STAT6 were markedly associated with TNM stage and tumor grade. Multivariate analysis adjusted for histological type, patient age, tumor grade and TMN stage revealed that STAT4 and STAT6 were independent prognostic factors for overall survival (OS). Additionally, gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) revealed that pathways of endometrial cancer, JAK-STAT, WNT, mTOR and p53 were differentially enriched in STAT1 high expression phenotype. And STAT1 was co-expressed with pik3ca, β-catenin(CTNNB1), wnt3a, wnt7a genes, as well, could co-mutated with pik3ca,TP53, APC, which were all key factors in PI3K-AKT-mTOR and WNT signaling pathway. Conclusion Thus, results supported that STAT1 might be used as a potential therapeutic target meanwhile STAT4 and STAT6 might act as prognostic molecular markers of improved survival for UCEC.