The expression of HOXC10 is correlated with tumor-infiltrating immune cells in basal-like breast cancer and serves as a prognostic biomarker

BACKGROUND: Homeobox gene C10 (HOXC10) plays a vital role in the occurrence and development of several cancers, but its effects and underlying mechanism in the prognosis of different subtypes of breast cancer remain unclear. METHODS: First, we evaluated and compared the expression levels of HOXC10 cancer to normal tissues in the Oncomine and Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) databases. Second, the correlation between HOXC10 and the survival of patients with different types of cancer, including breast cancer, was analyzed in the PrognoScan, Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA), and Kaplan-Meier plotter databases. Finally, the relationship between HOXC10 and immune-infiltration levels or gene marker sets of immune cells in basal-like breast cancer (BLBC) was investigated in the TIMER and GEPIA databases. RESULTS: The expression of HOXC10 was elevated in breast cancer tissues. High HOXC10 expression indicated a poor prognosis for breast cancer patients, and expression affected the survival time of lymph-node positive or grade III breast cancer patients. In BLBC, the median overall survival (OS) of patients with high HOXC10 expression was significantly shorter than that of patients with low HOXC10 expression. HOXC10 was positively correlated with the immune infiltration of macrophages in BLBC. Breast cancer patients with low HOXC10 expression in different enriched immune-cell subgroups had a favorable prognosis. CONCLUSIONS: The level of HOXC10 expression increased significantly in breast cancer, and elevated HOXC10 was positively correlated with immune-cell infiltration and poor prognosis in BLBC. These findings shed light on the important role of HOXC10 in breast cancer. HOXC10 should be recognized as a prognostic biomarker for determining prognosis and immune infiltration in BLBC patients.