Abstract
Pseudogenes play pivotal roles in tumorigenesis. Previous studies have suggested that pituitary tumor-transforming 3, pseudogene (PTTG3P), serves as an oncogene in human cancers. However, its expression pattern, biological function, and underlying mechanism in breast cancer remain unknown. In this study, we demonstrated an elevated expression of PTTG3P in breast cancer and discovered that PTTG3P expression correlated negatively with estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) status, but linked positively to basal-like status, triple-negative breast cancer status, Nottingham prognostic index (NPI), and Scarff-Bloom-Richardson grade. High expression of PTTG3P was also found to be associated with a poor prognosis of breast cancer. To explore the potential mechanisms of PTTG3P, a PTTG3P-microRNA (miRNA)-mRNA regulatory network was established. Co-expressed genes of PTTG3P were also obtained. Enrichment analysis for these co-expressed genes revealed that they were significantly enriched in mitotic nuclear division and cell cycle. Subsequent research on mechanism of PTTG3P indicated that its expression correlated positively with PTTG1 expression. However, no significant expression correlation between PTTG3P and PTTG2 was observed. Taken together, our findings suggest that increased expression of pseudogene PTTG3P may be used as a promising prognostic biomarker and novel therapeutic target for breast cancer.