C6orf106 (chromosome 6 open reading frame 106) is a recently discovered protein encoded by the 6th chromosome. Though many proteins encoded by chromosome 6 are reportedly related to cancer, schizophrenia, autoimmunity and many other diseases, the function of C6orf106 was not well demonstrated so far. As measured by immunohistochemical staining, C6orf106 was positive in normal breast duct myoepithelial cells (92.31 %, 72/78), but negative in normal breast duct glandular epithelial cells (3.85 %, 3/78). In breast ductal carcinoma in situ, C6orf106 showed weakly or moderately positive (77.97 %, 46/59), but it was significantly strongly positive in invasive ductal carcinoma (79.57 %, 148/186). The expression intensity of C6orf106 seemed increased significantly along with the malignancy of breast cancer (p < 0.001). Additionally, C6orf106 expression was significantly correlated with TNM stage (p = 0.001 and p = 0.004) and lymph node metastasis (p = 0.018 and p = 0.025) of the overall and the triple-negative breast cancer, respectively. Consistently, we found that the interference of C6orf106 was able to inhibit cell proliferation and invasion of two triple-negative breast cancer cell lines, MDA-MB-231 and BT-549, accompanied by the decrease of cyclin A2, cyclin B1, c-myc, and N-cadherin and the increase of E-cadherin. Collectively, these results indicate that C6orf106 may promote tumor progression in the invasive breast cancer, particularly in triple-negative breast cancer, and C6orf106 might serve as a novel therapeutic target of breast cancer, especially for triple-negative breast cancer.
Keywords: C-myc; C6orf106; Invasion; Proliferation; TNBC.