Overexpression of MUC1 predicts poor prognosis in patients with breast cancer

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in females; thus, there is an urgent requirement to identify precise biomarkers for the diagnosis and treatment of the disease. Mucin 1 (MUC1) is a glycoprotein that has been demonstrated to be involved in the metastasis and invasion of multiple tumor types. Bioinformatics analyses were conducted to indicate the prognostic value of MUC1 in breast cancer. Additionally, the expression level of MUC1 was assessed using Oncomine analysis. Furthermore, PrognoScan was used to analyze the prognostic value of MUC1 in breast cancer. Mutations of MUC1 were analyzed by the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer and cBioPortal databases. In addition, University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) was used to examine the methylation status of MUC1. Co-expression of MUC1 mRNA was detected with the cBioPortal, UCSC and Breast Cancer Gene-Expression Miner v4.0 datasets. The results demonstrated that MCU1 is frequently overexpressed in breast cancer and is negatively associated with CpG sites. Furthermore, pooled data indicated that abnormally high expression of MUC1 indicates poor prognosis. Additionally, upregulation of MUC1 expression is associated with estrogen receptor- and progesterone receptor-positive disease, aging and increased Scarff, Bloom and Richardson grade, but is not associated with triple-negative and basal-like status. Subsequent data mining across multiple large databases demonstrated a positive association between MUC1 mRNA expression and cyclic AMP-responsive element-binding protein 3-like 4 (CREB3L4) in breast cancer tissues. The present data indicated that the overexpression of MUC1 indicates a poor prognosis in patients with breast cancer and is associated with MUC1 promoter methylation status. Additionally, MUC1 positively correlated with CREB3L4 and may serve as a potential prognostic factor and therapy target for breast cancer.