3 | RESULTS
3.1 | Aberrant overexpression of UHRF1 in PCa tissues and promoted PCa progression
To assess whether UHRF1 is associated with PCa progression, we compared their expression levels in tumoral and normal tissues using TCGA database. The UHRF1 mRNA level was dramatically up-regulated in PCa tissues (n=481) compared with normal tissues (n = 51) (P<0.0001) (Fig. 1a), and the mRNA level of UHRF1 was positively correlated with the TNM stages of PCa (Fig.1b). More importantly, Knockdown of UHRF1 in PCa cells with siRNAs reduced the number of cells clonogenicity, suggesting that UHRF1 plays an important role in tumor growth and progression (Fig.1c). We further analyzed the correlation of UHRF1 mRNA level with the morbidity of PCa patients, and the diagnostic value of UHRF1 upregulation for PCa was confirmed by ROC curves (AUC= 0.747, P<0.0001) (Fig. 1d). Finally, we analyzed the correlation between UHRF1 mRNA levels and PCa patient recurrence-free survival (RFS), the results showed that the mRNA level of UHRF1 was negatively correlated with RFS (Fig.1e). All these results confirmed the oncogene role of UHRF1, which contributes to the tumorigenesis and progression of PCa.