High expression of PRKDC promotes breast cancer cell growth via p38 MAPK signaling and is associated with poor survival

Background DNA-Dependent Protein Kinase Catalytic Subunit (PRKDC), a key component of the DNA damage repair pathway, is associated with chemotherapy resistance and tumor progression. Methods Here we analyzed transcriptome data of similar to 2,000 breast cancer patients and performed functional studies in vitro to investigate the function of PRKDC in breast cancer. Results Our results revealed overexpression of PRKDC in multiple breast cancer subtypes. Consistent with patients' data, overexpression of PRKDC was also observed in breast cancer cell lines compared to normal breast epithelial cells. Knockdown of PRKDC in MCF-7 and T47D breast cancer cell lines resulted in proliferation inhibition, reduced colony formation and G2/M cell cycle arrest. Furthermore, we showed that PRKDC knockdown induced proliferation inhibition through activation of p38 MAPK, but not ERK MAPK, signaling pathway in breast cancer cells. Blockage of p38 MAPK signaling could largely rescue proliferation inhibition and cell cycle arrest induced by PRKDC knockdown. Moreover, we analyzed gene expression and clinical data from six independent breast cancer cohorts containing similar to 1,000 patients. In all cohorts, our results consistently showed that high expression of PRKDC was significantly associated with poor survival in both treated and untreated breast cancer patients. Conclusion Together, our results suggest that high expression of PRKDC facilitates breast cancer cell growth via regulation of p38 MAPK signaling, and is a prognostic marker for poor survival in breast cancer patients.