Overexpression of thymosin β10 correlates with disease progression and poor prognosis in bladder cancer

Thymosin β10 (TMSB10) has been found to be overexpressed and function as an oncogene in several types of cancer. However, there have been limited reports on the role of TMSB10 in bladder cancer (BCa). In the present study, reverse transcription-quantitative PCR was used to quantify the expression of TMSB10 in BCa cell lines, clinical specimens and their corresponding control samples. The protein expression of TMSB10 was also examined in archived tissues from 101 patients with pathologically confirmed BCa by immunohistochemistry. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression models were used to evaluate the prognostic significance of TMSB10 in patients with BCa. The data indicated that the mRNA levels of TMSB10 were significantly overexpressed in BCa cell lines. In addition, the protein levels of TMSB10 were overexpressed in BCa tissues compared with those in adjacent normal tissues. In 55/101 (54.5%) BCa specimens, high expression levels of TMSB10 were noted. Statistical analysis revealed that the high expression of TMSB10 was positively associated with muscular invasion (P<0.05). In addition, a high expression of TMSB10 was associated with shorter overall survival (OS) of patients (P<0.05; log-rank test). The univariate and multivariate analyses suggested that the protein overexpression of TMSB10 was an unfavorable prognostic factor for OS (P<0.05) in patients with BCa. Knockdown of the expression of TMSB10 significantly suppressed cell migration and invasion. In conclusion, TMSB10 can be considered an independent factor for the poor prognosis of patients with BCa. The targeting of TMSB10 can reduce the migration and invasion of BCa cells.