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Updated: Feb 1, 2026

Immunofluorescence Analysis of Endogenous and Exogenous Centromere-kinetochore Proteins
Published on: March 3, 2016
Upregulation of centromere protein F is linked to aggressive prostate cancers
Cosima Göbel1, Cansu Özden1, Cornelia Schroeder2
1Institute of Pathology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany, R.Simon@uke.de.
Background:
Centromere protein F (CENPF) is a key component of the kinetochore complex and plays a crucial role in chromosome segregation and cell cycle progression. Recent work suggests that CENPF upregulation is linked to aggressive tumor features in a variety of malignancies including prostate cancer.
Materials And Methods:
Using a highly annotated tissue microarray, we analyzed CENPF protein expression from a cohort of 8,298 prostatectomized patients by immunohistochemistry to study its effect on prostate-specific antigen recurrence-free survival.
Results:
CENPF overexpression was found in 53% of cancers, and was linked to higher Gleason grade, advanced pathological tumor stage, accelerated cell proliferation, and lymph node metastasis (p<0.0001, each). A comparison with other key molecular features accessible through the microarray revealed strong associations between CENPF overexpression and presence of erythroblast transformation-specific (ETS)-related gene (ERG) fusion as well as phosphatase and tensin homolog deletion (p<0.0001, each). CENPF overexpression was linked to early biochemical recurrence. A subset analysis revealed that this was driven by the ERG-negative subset (p<0.0001). This was independent of established preoperative and postoperative prognostic parameters in multivariate analyses.
Conclusion:
The results of our study identify CENPF overexpression as an important mechanism and a potential biomarker for prostate cancer aggressiveness.
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