Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a special subtype of
breast cancer, which is characterized by the negative form of
estrogen receptor (ER),
progesterone receptor (PR) and human epithelial
growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). TNBC accounts for ~15% of all
breast cancer forms, and often leads to high mortality and poor prognosis. Structural maintenance of chromosome 1 (SMC1) is a subunit of the cohesion
protein complex.
Brachyury is a
protein that is encoded by the T gene in humans, which is a
transcription factor within the T-box complex of genes. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a ubiquitous process in the body, and in particular, induces
metastasis and the proliferation of
cancer cells. In the present study, we found that SMC1 expression in TNBC tissues exceeded its expression in adjacent non-
tumor tissues. Similarly, the expression of SMC1 in TNBC cell lines (hs578T and HCC1937) was found to be higher than in MCF10a and MCF7 cells. Subsequently, SMC1 was overexpressed and silenced in hs578T and HCC1937 cells through plasmid and
siRNA transfection, respectively. The results showed that the high expression of SMC1 often promoted EMT, accompanied by the enhanced expression of
Brachyury. Besides, upregulated expression of
Brachyury through plasmid transfection also significantly improved the level of EMT, which further indicated that SMC1 increased EMT in TNBC through the induction of
Brachyury expression. Taken together, these results contributed to a better understanding of the pathogenesis of TNBC, which also provided an experimental basis for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of TNBC.