High TTK expression is related to worse overall survival in uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma

  • TTK encodes a component of the spindle assembly checkpoint and is a key regulator of chromosome segregation.

  • TTK expression levels retrieved from The Cancer Genome Atlas were compared between primary cancer and matched normal samples for 16 unique cancer types.

  • This analysis showed that TTK levels are elevated in all 16 cancer types, consistent with previous observations in, for instance, breast and lung cancer (Figure 1).1,2

  • In uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC), the expression was on average more than 16-fold increased compared to matched normal samples (Figure 1).

  • To further validate the relevance of TTK as a target for UCEC treatment, it was determined whether elevated TTK expression in tumor samples correlates with probability of survival. The UCEC samples were divided into high or low expression groups based on the median TTK expression value.

  • The Kaplan–Meier plot and log-rank test indicate that high expression of TTK is correlated with worse overall survival in UCEC (Figure 2).

  • Together, these results support TTK as a relevant therapeutic target in UCEC.

Figure 1 | TTK expression in tumor and matched normal samples for 16 cancer types.
Figure 2 | Kaplan–Meier plot showing overall survival of patients with UCEC with high or low expression of TTK.

References
1. Liu X, et al. (2015) TTK activates Akt and promotes proliferation and migration of hepatocellular carcinoma cells. Oncotarget.  6:34309–20.
2. Maire V, et al. (2013) TTK/hMPS1 is an attractive therapeutic target for triple-negative breast cancer. PLoS One. 8:e63712.