Objective   To investigate the expression of α-B crystalline in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and discuss its role in the prognosis and targeted therapy of TNBC by analyzing the correlation among α-B crystalline and the clinico-pathological indices of breast cancer.

  Methods  Immunohistochemistry SP assay was used to determine α-B crystalline expression in paraffin-embedded specimens of 30 cases of TNBC and 50 cases of non-TNBC tissues. The differences in protein expressions among tissues were compared, and correlation analysis was performed to determine the relationship between protein expression and clinico-pathological indices.

  Results   The positive expression rate of α-B crystalline was 66.67% in TNBC (20/30) and 42.00% in non-TNBC (21/50), which indicates that the expression is significantly higher in TNBC than in the non-TNBC tissues (χ ²=4.566, P< 0.05). The expression of α-B crystalline in breast cancer has no significant difference in terms of age, tumor diameter, and cancer stage (P>0.05), but exhibits a difference in terms of lymph node metastasis and the number of metastasized lymph nodes P53, Ki67 (P< 0.05), which presents a positive correlation (r=0.251). The α-B crystalline expression in TNBC has no significant difference among indices such as age, tumor diameter, nodal metastasis, number of metastasis, P53, cancer stage, and Ki67 (P>0.05).

  Conclusion   Significant differences were found in α-B crystalline expression between TNBC and non-TNBC. α-B crystalline is highly expressed in TNBC tissues, and the expression is significantly higher in TNBC tissues than that in non-TNBC tissues. α-B crystalline is associated with poor prognosis of breast cancer. Consequently, the overexpression of α-B crystalline in TNBC may be a reason for unfavorable TNBC prognosis.