Low expression of ZSCAN4 predicts unfavorable outcome in urothelial carcinoma of upper urinary tract and urinary bladder

BACKGROUND: With the advance in genome-wide analyses, genetic alternations have been found to play an important role in carcinogenesis and aggressiveness of UC. Through bioinformatic analysis of gene expression profiles of urinary bladder urothelial carcinoma (UBUC) from publicly available GEO dataset (GSE31684), Zinc finger and SCAN domain containing 4 (ZSCAN4) was identified as a significant downregulated gene in muscle-invasive bladder cancer when compared with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer. METHODS: The expression of ZSCAN4 was evaluated by immunohistochemistry in 340 upper urinary tract urothelial carcinomas (UTUCs) and 295 UBUCs. The expression profiles of ZSCAN4 and potential signaling pathways were analyzed bioinformatically. RESULTS: In UTUC, low expression of ZSCAN4 was significantly associated with advanced primary pT stage (P = 0.011), increased nodal metastasis (P = 0.002) and increased vascular invasion (P = 0.019). In UBUC, low expression of ZSCAN4 was significantly correlated with advanced primary pT stage (P < 0.001), increased nodal metastasis (P = 0.001), high histological grade (P = 0.003) and increased vascular invasion (P = 0.003). In survival analysis, low expression of ZSCAN4 acted as an independent negative prognostic factor for disease-specific survival and metastasis-free survival both in UTUC and UBUC. Gene ontology analysis showed that ZSCAN4 mRNA and its co-downregulated genes are associated with the mitotic cell cycle. CONCLUSIONS: Low expression of ZSCAN4 predicted worse outcome in urothelial carcinoma and might have potential regulatory role in cell mitosis. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12957-023-02948-4.