Fig. 7
Expression of CMP-N-acetylneuraminate-β-galactosamide-α-2,3-sialyltransferase 2 (ST3GAL2) correlates with breast cancer patients’ prognosis. The predictive value of ST3GAL2 was evaluated using a large, publicly available clinical microarray database based on breast tumors from 2977 patients [15]. Estrogen receptor–negative (ER−) patients and ER−/progesterone receptor –negative (PR−) patients displayed highly significant differences (p < 0.01) trending toward a poorer prognosis for patients expressing higher levels of ST3GAL2 (a). When we focused on patients treated with chemotherapy, we observed a highly significant reduction of relapse-free survival independent of the tumor subtype [p < 0.01, hazard ratio (HR) 1.91] in ER− patients (p < 0.01, HR 2.97) and in double-negative patients (p < 0.01, HR 3.08) among patients expressing high levels of ST3GAL2 (b). Also, when we applied distant metastasis-free survival as a primary endpoint, we found that patients treated with chemotherapy had a worse prognosis when expressing high levels of ST3GAL2 (c).