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Updated: Jun 16, 2026
Spontaneous Murine Model of Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer
Published on: February 3, 2023
TTK Overexpression: A Negative Prognostic Biomarker in Anaplastic Thyroid Carcinoma
Yan Guo1, Zhidong Sun2, Xiao Liu3
1Department of Pathology, Qinghai Provincial People's Hospital, Xining City, Qinghai Province, China.
Background:
Given threonine and tyrosine kinase (TTK)'s oncogenic role in various cancers and its understudied status in thyroid cancer, this study investigates TTK expression in thyroid lesions to assess its diagnostic and therapeutic potential.
Methods:
We analyzed differential TTK expression levels using public datasets (n = 143) and clinical samples (n = 91) across various thyroid lesions. Prognostic predictions based on TTK expression were conducted using a 2 × 2 contingency table, receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC), and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis.
Results:
TTK expression levels increased with the malignancy grade of thyroid lesions. In highly malignant anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) tissue, both TTK mRNA (p = 0.003) and protein levels (p = 0.000) were significantly higher than those in less malignant papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). TTK protein expression showed excellent discrimination between benign and malignant thyroid lesions (AUC = 0.983-0.999, p = 0.000). Notably, ATC patients with high TTK protein expression had significantly lower overall survival rates compared to those with low expression, effectively predicting prognosis (AUC = 0.833, p = 0.046).
Conclusion:
TTK expression is markedly upregulated in highly malignant ATC tissues compared to benign lesions and PTC. The protein level of TTK emerges as a valuable diagnostic marker for distinguishing between benign and malignant thyroid conditions and serves as a crucial prognostic indicator for ATC. Further exploration and validation of its application in clinical practice are warranted.
