Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive subtype of
breast cancer that currently lacks effective
biomarkers and therapeutic targets required to investigate the diagnosis and treatment of TNBC. Here we performed a comprehensive differential analysis of 165 TNBC samples by integrating
RNA-seq data of
breast tumor tissues and adjacent normal tissues from both our cohort and The
Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Pathway enrichment analysis was conducted to evaluate the biological function of TNBC-specific expressed genes. Further multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression was performed to evaluate the effect of these genes on TNBC prognosis. In this report, we identified a total of 148 TNBC-specific expressed genes that were primarily enriched in mammary gland morphogenesis and
hormone levels related pathways, suggesting that mammary gland morphogenesis might play a unique role in TNBC patients differing from other
breast cancer types. Further survival analysis revealed that nine genes ( FSIP1, ADCY5, FSD1, HMSD, CMTM5, AFF3,
CYP2A7, ATP1A2, and C11orf86) were significantly associated with the prognosis of TNBC patients, while three of them ( ADCY5,
CYP2A7, and ATP1A2) were involved in the
hormone-related pathways. These findings indicated the vital role of the
hormone-related genes in TNBC
tumorigenesis and may provide some independent prognostic markers as well as novel therapeutic targets for TNBC.