Moesin, a cytoskeletal
protein belonging to the
ezrin-
radixin-
moesin family serves important roles in cell motility, invasion and
metastasis.
Moesin has been demonstrated to be of prognostic significance in
tumor progression, due to its role in the metastatic process; however, its role in
breast cancer is not well characterized. In the present study, the
moesin expression was determined using immunohistochemistry in 404 and 46 patients with
breast cancer and
fibroadenoma, respectively, and the associations between
moesin expression and the clinical parameters and prognostic values were analyzed. The positive rate of
moesin protein expression was 47.8% (193/404) in
breast cancer tissues, which was significantly higher than in
fibroadenoma tissues (15.2%, 14/46). Overexpression of
moesin was significantly associated with advanced clinical stage (P=0.002), positive
lymph node metastasis (P<0.0001), and
estrogen receptor (ER; P=0.008) and
progesterone receptor (P=0.026) status. Patients with high
moesin expression had significantly lower recurrence-free survival time, compared with patient with low
moesin expression. Notably, overexpression of
moesin was significantly associated with poor prognosis in patients with ER-positive
breast cancer, and in patients treated with
tamoxifen. Using a Cox proportional hazard regression model, further analysis was conducted, which demonstrated that
moesin overexpression was a predictive prognostic factor for reduced overall survival time in patients with ER-positive
breast cancer, and in patients treated with
tamoxifen. These results indicated that
moesin may be a potential marker for poor prognosis in patients with ER-positive
breast cancer treated with
tamoxifen. In conclusion,
moesin serves an important role in the progression of
breast cancer, and may be a valuable marker of
breast cancer prognosis.