Hongbin Zhong, Bin Chen, Henrique Neves, Jinchun Xing, Youxin Ye, Ying Lin, Guohong Zhuang, Shu-Dong Zhang, Jiyi Huang, Hang Fai Kwok

Minichromosome maintenance (MCM) proteins play an essential role in DNA replication. They have been shown to be overexpressed in various types of cancer. However, the role of this family in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is widely unknown. In this study, we have identified a number of RCC datasets in the Gene Expression Omnibus database and also investigated the correlation between the expression levels of MCM genes and clinicopathological parameters. We found that the expression levels of MCM genes are positively correlated with one another. Expression levels of MCM2, MCM5, MCM6, and MCM7, but not of MCM3 and MCM4, were higher in RCC compared to paired adjacent normal tissue. Only the expression level of MCM4, but not of other MCMs, was positively correlated with tumor grade. In addition, a high-level expression of MCM2 in either primary tumor or metastases of RCC predicted a shorter disease-free survival time, while a high-level expression of MCM4 or MCM6 in primary tumor was also associated with poorer disease-free survival. Interestingly, we also demonstrated that patients with their primary RCC overexpressing 2 or more MCM genes had a shorter disease-free survival time, while those with RCC metastases overexpressing 3 or more MCM genes had a shorter disease-free survival. Importantly, we also demonstrated that overexpression of MCM genes is an independent predictor for survival in RCC patients. Our results suggest that MCM2-7 genes may be an important prognostic marker for patients with RCC.