TY - JOUR AB - Erythropoietin‑producing hepatocellular receptors (Ephs) comprise the largest subfamily of receptor tyrosine kinases and have been reported to be involved in a variety of biological cellular processes, including tumorigenesis and cancer progression. The present study aimed to determine the expression levels and clinicopathological significance of EphA8 in breast cancer (BC) using immunohistochemistry analysis of tissue microarrays. The results of the present study revealed that EphA8 expression levels were upregulated in BC tissue and were associated with tumor size and TNM stage. In addition, upregulated expression levels of EphA8 were identified to be a poor prognostic biomarker for patients with BC. The knockdown of EphA8 expression using short hairpin RNA resulted in increased levels of apoptosis as well as decreased proliferation, migration and invasion of BC cells both in vivo and in vitro. The knockdown of EphA8 also decreased the phosphorylation of AKT, which was accompanied by downregulation of Bcl‑2 expression levels and upregulation of p53, Caspase‑3 and Bax expression levels. Moreover, knockdown of EphA8 expression increased the chemosensitivity of BC cells to paclitaxel. In conclusion, the results of the present study indicated that EphA8 may be a useful prognostic marker in BC and that knockdown of EphA8 may represent a novel strategy in adjuvant chemotherapy for the treatment of BC. AD - Department of Clinical Biobank, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu 226001, P.R. China Department of General Surgery, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu 226001, P.R. China Department of Laboratory Medicine, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu 226001, P.R. China AU - Wang,Gui-Hua AU - Ni,Kan AU - Gu,Changjiang AU - Huang,Jianfei AU - Chen,Jing AU - Wang,Xu-Dong AU - Ni,Qichao DA - 2021/08/01 DO - 10.3892/or.2021.8134 IS - 2 JO - Oncol Rep KW - EphA8 prognosis biomarker AKT PY - 2021 SN - 1021-335X 1791-2431 SP - 183 ST - EphA8 inhibits cell apoptosis via AKT signaling and is associated with poor prognosis in breast cancer T2 - Oncology Reports TI - EphA8 inhibits cell apoptosis via AKT signaling and is associated with poor prognosis in breast cancer UR - https://doi.org/10.3892/or.2021.8134 VL - 46 ER -