RETRACTED: Comprehensive Analysis of the Expression and Prognosis for E2Fs in Human Breast Cancer (Retracted article. See vol. 30, pg. 2639, 2022)

E2F transcription factors (E2Fs), a group of genes that encode a family of transcription factors, have been identified as being involved in the tumor progression of various cancer types. Increasing experimental evidence indicates that E2Fs are implicated in breast cancer tumorigenesis. However, the diverse expression patterns and prognostic values of eight E2Fs have yet to be analyzed. Herein we investigated the transcriptional and survival data of E2Fs in patients with breast cancer from the Oncomine, Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA), Kaplan-Meier Plotter, and cBioPortal databases. We found that the expression levels of E2F1-3 and 5-8 were higher in breast cancer tissues than in normal breast tissues, whereas the expression level of E2F4 was lower in the former than in the latter. The expression levels of E2F2, 5, 7, and 8 were correlated with advanced tumor stage. Survival analysis using the Kaplan-Meier Plotter database revealed that the high transcription levels of E2F1-3, 5, 7, and 8 were associated with low relapse-free survival in all of the patients with breast cancer. Conversely, high E2F4 and E2F6 levels predicted high relapse-free survival in these patients. This study implied that E2F1-3, 5, 7, and 8 are potential targets of precision therapy for patients with breast cancer and that E2F4 and 6 are new bio-markers for the prognosis of breast cancer.