All experiments were performed in triplicate. Statistical analysis Statistical selleck screening library analyses were performed using SPSS 17.0 software. Correlation between NQO1 expression and clinicopathological characteristics was evaluated using the χ2 test and Fisher’s exact tests. Disease-free

survival (DFS) and 10-year overall survival MK-4827 (OS) after tumor removal were calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method, and differences in survival curves were analyzed using the Log-rank tests. Multivariate analysis was performed using the Cox proportional hazards regression model on all significant characteristics measured for univariate analysis. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results NQO1 mRNA and protein expression in breast cancers NQO1 mRNA levels were examined in eight pairs selleck kinase inhibitor of breast cancers and adjacent non-tumor breast tissues using qRT-PCR. The results revealed that the relative mRNA expression level of NQO1 was significantly upregulated in cancers compared with adjacent non-tumor tissues (Figure  1A). Western blot data also demonstrated that NQO1 protein was highly expressed in breast cancer tissues compared with adjacent non-tumor tissues (Figure  1B). Figure 1 Overexpression of NQO1 mRNA and protein in breast cancer tissues. Expression of NQO1 mRNA and protein in breast cancers tissues (T) and adjacent non-tumor tissues (ANT) were examined by qPCR (A) and western blotting

(B). Data in (A) represent

fold change of relative NQO1 mRNA expression normalized to GAPDH levels. Error bars represent the standard deviation of the mean (SD) calculated from three parallel experiments. *P < 0.05. To determine the subcellular localization of NQO1 protein, IF staining for NQO1 protein was performed in MCF-7 breast cancer cells. The staining results clearly showed that NQO1 protein is mainly located in the cytoplasm in MCF-7 breast cancer cells (Figure  2). Figure 2 Immunofluorescent staining of NQO1 in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells. NQO1 protein located in the cytoplasm of breast cancer Venetoclax datasheet cells (red indicates NQO1 staining; Blue indicates DAPI). IHC staining also showed that NQO1 protein is mainly located in the cytoplasm of breast cancer cells (Figure  3). The positive rate of NQO1 protein expression was 84.7% (149/176) in breast cancers, which was significantly higher than that in hyperplasia (36.7%, 8/22) and adjacent non-tumor tissues (30.8%, 16/52) (P < 0.001). Similarly, the strongly positive rate of NQO1 expression was 61.9% (109/176) in breast cancers, which was also significantly higher than that in hyperplasia (13.6%, 3/22) and adjacent non-tumor tissues (13.5%, 7/52) (P < 0.001). More importantly, the positive rate of NQO1 protein in DCIS was also significantly higher (51.1%, 23/45) than hyperplasia (36.7%, 8/22) and adjacent non-tumor tissues (30.8%, 16/52) (Table  2).