IMPDH2 is highly expressed in breast cancer and predicts unfavourable prognosis.

Inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase type II (IMPDH2) is reported to be associated with tumor formation. However, the correlation between IMPDH2 and breast cancer has never been reported. In this study, IMPDH2 expression was measured in 40 cases of breast cancer tissues and matched adjacent normal tissues by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and Western blotting assays. Then, IMPDH2 expression was further detected in 153 cases of breast cancer tissues by immunohistochemistry (IHC). The correlation between IMPDH2 expression and clinicopathological characteristics and patients' prognosis was investigated in breast cancer. Results shown that IMPDH2 mRNA level in breast cancer tissues was significantly elevated compared with those in matched adjacent normal tissues (P<0.001). The high-expression rate of IMPDH2 in breast cancer tissues was 62.7%, which was significantly higher than those in adjacent normal tissues (17.6%, P<0.001). IMPDH2 high expression correlated with lymph node metastasis and TNM stage in breast cancer (P<0.05). Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that IMPDH2 as well as lymph node metastasis and TNM stage were significantly associated with patients' prognosis (P<0.05). Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed MPDH2, lymph node metastasis and TNM stage could be served as independent factors to predict prognosis. Thus, these data indicate IMPDH2 is highly expressed in breast cancer and predicts unfavourable prognosis, which may be served as a potential biomarker.