Fucosyltransferase IV (FUT4) as an effective biomarker for the diagnosis of breast cancer

Specific enzymes are involved in altered glycosylation of cancer. Fucosyltransferase IV (FUT4) is associated with the proliferation and metastasis of breast cancer. The application of FUT4 assay in the serum has not been reported yet. Here, the expression level of FUT4 in the breast cancer patient's tissues (n = 60) was analyzed by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and the secreted FUT4 in blood serum samples (n = 225) was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Using low metastatic MCF-7 and high metastatic MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell lines, FUT4 expression was also detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), Western blot and immunofluorescent staining. The conventional cancer biomarkers cancer antigen (CA15.3) and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was analyzed by Elecsys-electrochemical immune assay (ECLIA) to compare specificity and sensitivity with that of FUT4. We have observed a significant high expression of FUT4 in breast cancer tissues and serums as compared to the normal tissues (P < 0.01) and control serums (P < 0.05). FUT4 expression was increased in MDA-MB-231 cells vs. that in MCF-7 cells. Furthermore, the results of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was shown, area under curve of FUT4 (AUC = 0.784) was higher than that of CA15.3 (AUC = 0.468) and CEA (AUC = 0.563). The relation analysis is indicated FUT4 is significantly correlated with CA15.3 (r = 0.234, P < 0.05) and there is no significant correlation with CEA. In conclusion, this study suggests that FUT4 can serve as novel biomarker in the diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer.