Relationship between Tertiary Lymphoid Structure and the Prognosis and Clinicopathologic Characteristics in Solid Tumors

Background: An increasing number of studies had shown that tertiary lymphoid structure (TLS) plays an important role in tumor progression. However, the prognostic role of TLS in various tumors remains controversial. This meta-analysis aims to investigate the clinicopathological and prognostic values of TLS in solid tumors.Methods: A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane Library undated to November 2, 2020. Odds ratios of clinical parameters, hazard ratio (HR) of overall survival (OS), relapse-free survival (RFS), disease-free survival (DFS) and relapse rate were calculated in order to evaluate the relationship between TLS expression and clinicopathological or prognostic values in different tumors.Result: 27 eligible studies including 6647 patients with different types of tumors were analyzed. High TLS expression was associated with a longer OS (HR = 0.66, 95% CI: 0.50 - 0.86, P = 0.002) and RFS (HR = 0.61, 95% CI: 0.47 - 0.79, P = 0.0001). Moreover, high TLS levels in tumor were associated with a low risk of recurrence (HR = 0.43, 95% CI: 0.32 - 0.57, P < 0.0001). However, there was no relationship between TLS expression and DFS. Meanwhile, high TLS expression was associated with smaller tumor size (P < 0.00001) and higher tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). Furthermore, the subgroup analysis showed high TLS expression that may be associated with a lower clinical grading and N stage in breast cancer and colorectal cancer.Conclusion: High TLS expression is associated with the longer OS and RFS in solid tumors, and a lower risk of cancer relapse. Meanwhile, high TLS expression is also associated with a smaller tumor size, higher infiltration of TILs, lower clinical grading and N stage in the tumor. Therefore, high TLS expression in the tumor is a favorable prognostic biomarker for solid tumor patients.     

Up-regulation of long non-coding RNA CCAT2 correlates with tumor metastasis and poor prognosis in cervical squamous cell cancer patients

Background: Dysregulation of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) plays critical roles in tumor progression. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between lncRNA CCAT2 expression and cervical squamous cell cancer susceptibility and prognosis. Methods: Expression levels of lncRNA CCAT2 in 123 cervical squamous cell tumor specimens were determined by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR), to clarify the clinical significance of lncRNA CCAT2 in cervical squamous cell cancer, we further discussed the relationship between lncRNA CCAT2 expression and overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Results: In the present study, we found that lncRNA CCAT2 was up-regulated in cervical squamous cell cancer tissues compared to the adjacent non-tumor tissues. In addition, the high lncRNA CCAT2 expression was significantly associated with the FIGO stage, lymph node metastasis and depth of cervical invasion (P<0.05). Furthermore, patients with high expression of lncRNA CCAT2 had poor OS (HR=2.813, 95% CI: 1.504-6.172; P=0.017), and PFS rates (HR=3.072, 95% CI: 1.716-8.174; P=0.008). Multivariate Cox proportional hazard model analysis demonstrated that high lncRNA CCAT2 expression was an independent poor prognostic factor for cervical squamous cell cancer patients. Conclusions: Our study suggested that high expression of lncRNA CCAT2 is related to the prognosis of cervical squamous cell cancer; it may be a new prognostic biomarker and potential therapeutic target for cervical squamous cell cancer intervention.     

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in human esophageal cancer associates with tumor progression and patient’s survival

The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is an essential step in invasion and metastasis of human cancers. Identification of EMT status would help us to properly understand the mechanism of cancer metastasis and progression. In the present study, tissue microarray and immunohistochemical staining of two important markers, E-cadherin and Vimentin, were used to characterize the EMT status in human esophageal cancer. We selected the appropriate cut-off values of expression levels of E-cadherin and Vimentin, and found 63 out of 105 cases of esophageal cancers underwent EMT. And we also found that in the subgroup with (T₃ + T₄), the ratio of patients undergoing EMT was significantly higher than that in the subgroup with (T₁ + T₂) (P = 0.0097), and in the subgroup with metastasis, the ratio of patients undergoing EMT was significantly higher than that in the subgroup with no metastasis (P = 0.0253). The log-rank survival analysis showed that the overall survival rate of the patients undergoing EMT was significantly poorer than that of the patients with wide type status (P = 0.0278, HR = 2.470, 95% CI: 1.971~2.970). In the COX model analysis, we also found that the EMT status of the esophageal cancer patients could be used as an independent risk factor for the prediction of prognosis of this malignancy (P = 0.026, HR = 2.306, 95% CI: 1.103~4.824). Thus, our present study successfully established a method by using tissue microarray and the markers, E-cadherin and Vimentin, to conveniently and properly identify the EMT status in human esophageal cancer, and revealed that the EMT status significantly associated with invasion, metastasis and prognosis in this malignancy.     

Elevated cleaved caspase-3 is associated with shortened overall survival in several cancer types

Emerging evidence has indicated that apoptotic cells have a compensatory effect on the proliferation of neighboring cells. Recent studies have shown that apoptotic tumor cells stimulate the repopulation of tumors from a small number of surviving cells by cleaved caspase-3 regulation and elevated tumor cleaved (and thus activated) caspase-3 expression levels predict worse treatment outcomes in cancer patients. The prognostic significance of cleaved caspase-3 should be demonstrated in more human cancer types and larger subjects. Here, we examined the cleaved caspase-3 expression in 367 human tumor samples (gastric cancer: 97 cases, ovarian cancer: 65 cases, cervical cancer: 104 cases; colorectal cancer: 101 cases) with immunohistochemistry (IHC) and the relationship between the expression of cleaved caspase-3 and various clinicopathological factors were also detected. We found that, cleaved caspase-3 was significantly associated with pathological risk factors (P < 0.005) for the studied cancers, such as tumor stage, lymph-node metastasis, differentiation and so on. In univariate and multivariate analysis, patients with high expression of cleaved caspase-3 had a significant shorter overall survival time compared with those with low cleaved caspase-3 expression in gastric cancer (P < 0.001), ovarian cancer (P < 0.001), cervical cancer (P = 0.002), colorectal cancer (P < 0.001) individually and in the patients combined (P < 0.001). Cox regression results suggested cleaved caspase-3 as an independent prognosis predictor for the studied four cancer types. Our study showed cleaved caspase-3 was well correlated to progression, aggressive behaviors in the studied cancer, and implicated it as a potential predictive factor for the prognosis of the four cancer types. It also indicated cleaved caspase-3 as a potential therapeutic target for cancer patients.     

Clinicopathologic and prognostic significance of p21 (Cip1/Waf1) expression in bladder cancer

Recent studies have shown that altered expression p21 is shown to associate with tumorigenesis and tumor progression. To investigate the clinicopathological significance and prognostic value of p21 in bladder cancer (BCa). A total of 48 patients with BCa were included in this study. The correlation between p21 expression and clinicopathologic features and survival was studied. Also, a meta-analysis was performed to investigate the relationship between the p21 and BCa survival. Low p21 expression was detected both in tumor tissues compared with adjacent normal tissues. The expression of p21 was closely associated with advanced pathologic TNM stage (P = 0.001) and tumor grade (P = 0.013). Moreover, patients with low p21 expression had shorter recurrence-free survival (P = 0.016) and overall survival rates (P = 0.039). Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that p21 low expression was an independent prognostic factor for recurrence free survival (P = 0.03). Additionally, our meta-analysis. The available outcome data from six articles were examined. A meta-analysis of the HR indicated a significantly poor overall survival (OS, HR: 1.75, 95% CI: 1.38-2.21), recurrence free survival (RFS, HR: 1.83, 95% CI: 1.57-2.15), progression free survival (PFS, HR: 2.02, 95% CI: 1.48-2.75), and cancer specific survival (CSS, HR: 1.89, 95% CI: 1.53-2.33) in patients with low expression levels of p21. Our present results indicated that low p21 expression predicated tumor recurrence and poor prognosis in bladder cancer.     

MSH3 rs26279 polymorphism increases cancer risk: a meta-analysis

Previous studies have investigated the association of mutS homolog 3 (MSH3) rs26279 G > A polymorphism with the risk of different types of cancers including colorectal cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, thyroid cancer, ovarian cancer and oesophageal cancer. However, its association with cancer remains conflicting. We performed a comprehensive meta-analysis to derive a more precise estimation of the relationship between MSH3 rs26279 G > A polymorphism and cancer susceptibility. Systematically searching the PubMed and EMBASE databases yielded 11 publications with 12 studies of 3282 cases and 6476 controls. The strength of the association was determined by crude odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Overall, pooled risk estimates demonstrated that MSH3 rs26279 G > A was significantly associated with an increased overall cancer risk under all the genetic models (GG vs. AA: OR = 1.27, 95% CI = 1.09-1.48, P = 0.002; AG vs. AA: OR = 1.10, 95% CI = 1.00-1.21, P = 0.045; GG vs. AG + AA: OR = 1.23, 95% CI = 1.06-1.42, P = 0.005; AG + GG vs. AA: OR = 1.13, 95% CI = 1.04-1.24, P = 0.006; G vs. A: OR = 1.13, 95% CI = 1.05-1.20, P = 0.001). The association was more evident for colorectal cancer and breast cancer. Moreover, the significant association was also observed in the following subgroups: Europeans, Asians, population-based studies, hospital-based studies, and studies comprising relatively large sample size (≥ 200). Our meta-analysis results demonstrated that MSH3 rs26279 G > A polymorphism is associated with an increased risk of overall cancer, especially for the colorectal cancer and breast cancer.     

Prognostic and clinicopathological significance of CapG in various cancers: Evidence from a meta-analysis

BackgroundThe gelsolin-like actin-capping protein (CapG) is an actin-binding protein in the gelsolin superfamily. Increasing evidence indicates that CapG is highly expressed in various types of cancer. However, the role of CapG in malignant tumors is still controversial. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to assess the prognostic value and clinicopathological significance of CapG in malignant tumors.MethodWe searched for eligible studies in the PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Cochrane databases. Stata SE12.0 software was used for quantitative meta-analysis. The hazard ratios (HRs) and odds ratios (ORs) with 95% CI were pooled to assess the relationship between CapG expression and overall survival (OS), as well as clinicopathological parameters.ResultsSixteen studies with a total of 1987 cancer patients were included in this meta-analysis. The results showed that higher CapG expression was statistically correlated with shorter OS (HR 1.70, 95% CI 1.43–1.97, P < 0.001), positive lymph node metastasis (OR 1.91, 95% CI 1.19–3.09, P = 0.008), advanced TNM stage (OR 1.87, 95% CI 1.17–3.00, P = 0.009), advanced T-primary stage (OR 2.54, 95% CI 1.08–6.00, P = 0.033) and male sex (OR 1.77, 95% CI 1.23–2.56, P = 0.002). However, no significant correlation was observed between increased CapG expression and advanced age, larger tumor size, differentiation, or advanced histopathologic grading (P > 0.05).ConclusionsHigh CapG expression is associated with a poor prognosis and worse clinicopathological parameters in various cancers. CapG is a potential prognostic biomarker and a possible clinicopathological predictive factor for various cancers.     

B7-H6 expression correlates with cancer progression and patient’s survival in human ovarian cancer

B7-H6, a newly identified B7 family member molecule, binds to its receptor on NK cells, NKp30, and then triggers the anti-tumor NK cell cytotoxicity and leads to the cytokine secretion. As of now, numerous studies have demonstrated that the higher B7-H6 expression could be found in certain human cancers and have important clinical significance. In our present study, we carried out the tissue microarray and the immunohistochemistry assay to investigate the clinical significance of B7-H6 expression in human ovarian cancer. Our results showed that the positive B7-H6 staining was predominantly observed on the membrane and in the cytoplasm of the ovarian cancer cells. In order to further investigate the correlation between clinical parameters and the B7-H6 protein levels in the ovarian tissues, we categorized all the 110 patients into two major subgroups according to the intensity of B7-H6 immunohistochemical staining, i.e., the lower B7-H6 expression group, 34 cases (0 ≤ H-score < 100), and the higher B7-H6 expression group, 76 cases (H-score ≥ 100), and we found that B7-H6 expression in the ovarian cancer tissues is significantly correlated with distant metastasis status (P = 0.028) and FIGO stage (P = 0.031), whereas it is not correlated with patient’s age, tumor size, tumor location, pathological stage or nodal metastasis. The survival analysis demonstrated that the overall survival rate of the subgroup with lower B7-H6 expression is significantly better than that of the subgroup with higher B7-H6 expression (P = 0.0456, Hazard Ratio: 1.707, 95% CI, 1.010-2.885). Thus, our present data revealed that higher B7-H6 expression in ovarian cancer tissues was positively correlated with tumor metastasis and cancer progression, and supports the notion that B7-H6 expression is involved in the progression of human ovarian cancer, the detailed mechanism merits further investigation.     

Soluble intercellular cell adhesion molecule-1 in lung cancer: A meta-analysis

BackgroundMany recent studies have investigated the prognostic, diagnostic, and progressive features of soluble intercellular cell adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM-1) in lung cancer patients, but the results remained inconsistent. This study aimed to explore the value of serum sICAM-1 in patients with lung cancer.MethodsA comprehensive systematic literature search in the Wanfang databases, china national knowledge infrastructure, Pubmed, and Embase was carried out update to June 15, 2019. The standard mean difference (SMD), hazard ratio (HR), and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were applied to investigate the effect sizes.Results23 observational studies were included. According to our results, the serum sICAM-1 concentrations in patients with lung cancer were significantly higher than that in controls (healthy controls: SMD: 4.08, 95% CI: 3.14–5.02, P < 0.001; benign lung diseases controls : SMD: 1.48, 95% CI: 0.23–2.73,P = 0.02). Fortunately, a subgroup analysis was performed by language, treatment status, and lung cancer types, and the statistical results were similar. Serum sICAM-1 levels were markedly higher in stage III/IV than stage I/II (SMD: 1.96, 95% CI: 1.08−2.84, P < 0.001), Additionally, lung cancer patients with lymph node metastasis had a higher concentrations of serum sICAM-1(SMD: 1.83, 95% CI: 0.95−2.72, P < 0.001), as well as with distant metastasis (SMD: 0.86, 95% CI: 0.47−1.25, P < 0.001). Additionally, patients with higher sICAM-1 levels were related to a significantly poorer prognosis (progression free survival: HR: 1.16, 95% CI: 1.07–1.26, P < 0.001; overall survival: HR: 1.45, 95% CI: 1.17–1.79, P = 0.001).ConclusionsOur study suggested that serum sICAM-1 levels may act as a potential marker for diagnosing lung cancer and predicting its staging, and were negatively correlated with prognosis of lung cancer.     

Methylation status of TRAF2 is associated with the diagnosis and prognosis of gastric cancer

The purpose was to investigate whether the expression level of TRAF2 gene was regulated by DNA methylation and explore the role of TRAF2 methylation in the diagnosis and prognosis of gastric cancer (GC). Firstly, we detected the expression of TRAF2 both at mRNA level and protein level. And the up-regulated of TRAF2 expression at two different levels were both found (P<0.001). Then we measured the methylated status of TRAF2 by MSP and got a result of that TRAF2 was hypomethylated in GC patients compared with healthy controls (P<0.001). Meanwhile, the relationship between TRAF2 methylation and clinicopathologic characteristics was estimated through chi-square. The outcome proved that TRAF2 methylation was impacted by age (P=0.024), lymph node metastasis (P=0.046), TNM stage (P=0.021), distant metastasis (P=0.002) and depth of invasion (P=0.002). The AUC of 0.795 accompanying a sensitivity of 66.7% and a specificity of 94.7% were obtained from Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve which indicated the diagnostic value of TRAF2 methylation was high. At last, we researched the prognostic value of TRAF2 methylation. Kaplan-Meier showed that patients with TRAF2 hypomethylation had lived much shorter than those with TRAF2 hypermethylation (log rank test, P<0.001). Cox regression analysis revealed TRAF2 hypomethylation (HR=18.827, 95% CI=3.103-114.222, P=0.001), lymph node metastasis (HR=0.154, 95% CI=0.047-0.512, P=0.002), distant metastasis (HR=3.032, 95% CI=1.116-8.237, P=0.030), as well as differentiation (HR=0.287, 95% CI=0.113-0.731, P=0.009) were all vital prognostic factors in GC. Taken together, TRAF2 expression was increased in GC patients by DNA hypomethylation and this methylation could be an independent diagnostic and prognostic indicator in GC.     

MicroRNA-148b is down-regulated in non-small cell lung cancer and associated with poor survival

Background: The aim of this study was to clarify the clinicopathological significance of miRNA-148b (miR-148b) expression in NSCLC, and to explore the correlation between miR-148b level and the prognosis of patients with NSCLC. Methods: 151 patients diagnosed with NSCLC between May 2007 and April 2012 were included in the present study. Real-time RT-PCR method was used to assess the expression levels of miR-148b. The differences between two groups were assessed using Student’s t -test, and the Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate overall survival. Results: The expression of miR-148b was decreased in tumor tissues compared to corresponding adjacent normal lung tissues (0.37 ± 0.12 vs. 1.00 ± 0.53, P < 0.05). Low miR-148b expression was significantly associated with TNM stage (P = 0.014), lymph node metastasis (P = 0.031), and distant metastasis (P = 0.008). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that patients with low expression of miR-148b had significantly worse overall survival rates compared with those who had cancers with high miR-148b expression (log-rank test P = 0.039). Furthermore, multivariate Cox proportional hazards model analysis showed that miR-148b expression was independently associated with overall survival of patients with NSCLC (HR = 2.357, 95% CI: 1.612-9.212, P = 0.011). Conclusion: our data indicate that decreased expression of miR-148b in NSCLC tissues has prognostic value.     

Low expression of RSK4 predicts poor prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death all over the world. Ribosomal s6 kinase4 (RSK4), an X-linked gene, firstly was found as to be a potential tumor suppressive gene in a variety of cancers and is widely participated in signaling pathway. However its role in CRC is unclear. This study is to explore the correlation between the protein expression of RSK4 and clinical pathologic characteristics in colorectal tumors, which might serve as a prognostic determinant of colorectal cancers. Methods: Biopsies of 103 colorectal cancer and 46 matched adjacent noncancerous tissues were collected for analysis of RSK4 protein by immunohistochemistry. The correlation between RSK4 protein expression and the clinical pathological features of colorectal cancers were evaluated by Chi-square test and Fisher’s exact test. The survival rates were analyzed by the Kaplan-Meier method, and the relationship between prognostic factors and patient survival was analyzed by the Cox proportional hazard models. Results: RSK4 was conversely correlated with some pathological classifications (P<0.05 for N, G and clinical staging), and there were no statistically significant differences in age, CEA expression in blood, CA199 and tumors t-staging (x² test, P>0.05 for all categories) respectively. Furthermore, patients with high protein level of RSK4 showed prolonged overall survivals (P<0.05). Moreover, multivariate analysis showed that low expression level of RSK is an independent risk factor for high mortality in colorectal cancer. Conclusions: Low RSK4 expression is correlated with advanced clinical pathologic classifications and is a poor overall survival in colorectal cancer patients. These findings suggest that RSK4 may serve as a useful marker in prognostic evaluation for patients with colorectal cancer.     

Nuclear C-MYC expression level is associated with disease progression and potentially predictive of two year overall survival in prostate cancer

Purpose: Upregulation of nuclear C-MYC protein has been reported to be an early event in prostate cancer (PCa); however, its clinicopathological and prognostic significance remain controversial. We determined the association of nuclear C-MYC protein expression with clinicopathological parameters, prognosis, ETS-related gene (ERG) expression, and TMPRSS2-ERG status in PCa. Methods: Nuclear C-MYC and ERG expression by immunohistochemistry and TMPRSS2-ERG status by triple-color probe fluorescence in situ hybridization assay were determined in 50 hormone-naïve PCa patients and 31 radical prostatectomy specimens. Results: Nuclear C-MYC immunostaining was negative, positive, and strong positive in 27.5%, 32.5%, and 40.0% of cases, respectively. C-MYC immunostaining was significantly associated with clinical T stage (P < 0.001), distant metastasis at the time of diagnosis (P < 0.001) and TMPRSS2-ERG status (P = 0.001) but not with ERG immunostaining (P = 0.818). In the Kaplan-Meier analysis, C-MYC positive cases were found to have worse 2-year OS compared with C-MYC negative cases (P = 0.027). However, in the univariate Cox analysis, only TMPRSS2-ERG status (hazard ratio [HR] 0.189, 95% CI 0.057-0.629; P = 0.007) and distant metastasis (HR 3.545, 95% CI 1.056-11.894; P = 0.040) were significantly associated with 2-year OS. After adjusting for these two factors, TMPRSS2-ERG status still impacted 2-year OS (HR 0.196, 95% CI 0.049-0.778; P = 0.020). Conclusions: Nuclear C-MYC overexpression may be associated with disease progression and potentially predictive of 2-year OS in PCa. This is the first study to demonstrate an association between nuclear C-MYC immunostaining and TMPRSS2-ERG status in PCa.     

Insulin-like growth factor receptor 1 (IGF1R) expression and survival in non-small cell lung cancer patients: a meta-analysis

The insulin-like growth factor receptor-1 (IGF1R) plays an important role in cancer progression. Previous studies have been controversial with respect to the associations between IGF1R expression and non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) prognosis. Thus, we performed a meta-analysis to investigate the prognostic value of IGF1R expression in NSCLC patients and the relationship between the expression of IGF1R and clinical characteristics. Two independent reviewers searched PubMed, Embase, Ovid Medline and CNKI to identify eligible studies. Overall survival (OS), disease free survival (DFS) and clinicopathological characteristics were collected from included studies. Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) or odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were calculated to estimate the effect. 17 studies comprising 3,294 patients were included in this meta-analysis. The results showed IGF1R positive expression was associated with an unfavorable DFS in NSCLC patients on univariate analysis (HR = 1.26, 95% CI: 1.09-1.46, P = 0.002) and multivariate analysis (HR = 1.49, 95% CI: 1.01-2.20, p = 0.045), but the relationship between IGF1R expression and OS have no significant difference on univariate analysis (HR = 0.91, 95% CI: 0.82-1.01, P = 0.157) and multivariate analysis (HR = 0.79, 95% CI: 0.45-1.41, P = 0.427). Ever smoking and smaller tumor size (T1 or T2) were associated with IGF1R positive expression: pooled OR 1.45 (1.13-1.85) and pooled OR 0.61 (0.60-0.95). Our results suggested IGF1R positive expression as an unfavorable factor for DFS in NSCLC patients, and IGF1R expression was associated with smoking status and tumor size.     

B7-H1 expression associates with tumor invasion and predicts patient’s survival in human esophageal cancer

B7-H1, an important member of the B7-CD28 super family, has been reported to play an important role in regulation of T-cell mediated anti-tumor response, and also has effect in the biological characteristics of the tumor cells themselves. The bulk of data indicate that cancer immunotherapy targeting the molecule B7-H1 recently has sparked growing interest. We have previously reported that higher expression of B7-H1 in human gastric cancer significantly associated with tumor size, invasion, nodal metastasis, survival and the density of infiltrating Foxp3+ Tregs. In the present study, we used tissue microarray to further study B7-H1 expression in human esophageal cancer tissues and its clinical significance. We found that positive membranous B7-H1 expression could be found in some human esophageal cancer cell lines, and both membranous/cytoplasm and nuclear staining of B7-H1 could be found in esophageal cancer tissues. We demonstrated that the membranous/cytoplasm B7-H1 expression in human esophageal cancer tissues was significantly correlated with tumor invasion depth (P = 0.0261), whereas it was not correlated with patient’s gender, age, tumor size, nodal metastasis, distant metastasis and TNM stage. The survival analysis showed that the overall survival of the patients with positive B7-H1 membrane/cytoplasm expression was significantly poorer than that of the patients with negative B7-H1 membrane/cytoplasm expression (Hazard ratio = 2.157, 95% CI: 1.017-4.577, P = 0.0452). Moreover, we also found that the nuclear B7-H1 expression in human esophageal cancer tissues was significantly correlated with tumor invasion depth (P = 0.0331), whereas it was not correlated with other parameters. The log-rank survival analysis showed that there was no statistically significant difference in prognosis between the patients with positive nuclear B7-H1 staining and the patients with negative nuclear B7-H1 staining (P = 0.6755). Thus, our data showed that B7-H1 can serve as a prognostic predictor for human esophageal cancer, and also could be an important therapeutic target for the immune therapy against this malignancy.     

Elevated expression of UHRF1 predicts unfavorable prognosis for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Aims: The present study was designed to evaluate the different expression of ubiquitin-like with PHD and ring finger domains 1 (UHRF1) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues and the adjacent normal tissues, further explore the correlation between UHRF1 expression and the prognosis of HCC patients. Methods: The UHRF1 expression at protein level in HCC tissues and the adjacent normal tissues were measured by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Chi-square test was used to estimate the relationship between UHRF1 expression and clinicopathologic characteristics of HCC patients. The overall survival of HCC patients with diverse expression of UHRF1 was measured by Kaplan-Meier analysis. Cox regression analysis was conducted to judge the prognostic value of UHRF1 in HCC patients. Results: The UHRF1 was over-expressed in HCC tissues compared with the adjacent normal tissues according to the outcome of HPLC (P<0.001). Besides, the UHRF1 expression was tightly related to distant metastasis, cancer area, and HBV (P<0.05), but shared no correlation with gender, cirrhosis, and bilirubin (P>0.05). Patients with high UHRF1 expression had a shorter overall survival time than those with low UHRF1 expression (P<0.001). Cox regression analysis showed that UHRF1 was significantly linked with the prognosis of HCC patients (P=0.002, HR=5.807, 95% CI=1.901-17.742). Conclusion: UHRF1 was over-expressed in HCC tissues compared to the adjacent normal tissues and UHRF1 expression shared significant relevance with distant metastasis, cancer area and HBV. It could be an important and independent prognostic biomarker for HCC patients.     

Clinicopathological and prognostic significance of TINCR in caner: A meta-analysis

BackgroundIn a variety of cancers, the expression of TINCR is linked to the development, progression, metastasis, invasion, and prognosis of cancer. Our study is the first study used meta-analysis to explore the relationship between TINCR expression and cancer.MethodsBy looking up PubMed, Web of Science, CNKI database, we obtained 10 articles for analysis. The statistical analysis was all calculated by Stata 15.1 software.ResultsWe found that the expression of TINCR was a risk factor to the size of the tumor (OR = 1.772, 95%CI: 1.246–2.520, P = 0.001). In univariate analysis, patients with high expression of TINCR had poor OS (pooled HR = 1.533, 95%CI: 1.025–2.294, P = 0.038). Similar result was also found in multivariate analysis In subgroup analysis (pooled HR = 1.610, 95%CI: 1.356–1.913, P = 0.000).We also found that over-expression of TINCR had poor OS in breast cancer (pooled HR = 1.582, 95%CI: 1.126–2.223, P = 0.008).ConclusionIn this study, we found that over-expression of TINCR may influence the tumor size and contribute to the poor prognosis of cancer.     

Combined identification of long non-coding RNA XIST and HIF1A-AS1 in serum as an effective screening for non-small cell lung cancer

Objective: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) XIST and HIF1A-AS1 have been shown to play important regulatory roles in cancer biology, and lncRNA-XIST and HIF1A-AS1 are upregulated in several cancers such as glioblastoma, breast cancer and thoracoabdominal aorta aneurysm, however, its value in the diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is unclear. The aim of this study is to evaluate the clinical significance of serum XIST and HIF1A-AS1 as a biomarker in the screening of NSCLC. Methods: Expression levels of lncRNA-XIST and HIF1A-AS1 in tumor tissues and serum from NSCLC patients were evaluated by quantitative real-time PCR, and its association with overall survival of patients was analyzed by statistical analysis. Moreover, the XIST and lncRNA-XIST expression correlation between tumor tissues and plasma was demonstrated by linear regression analysis. Results: The levels of XIST (P < 0.05) and HIF1A-AS1 (P < 0.05) were significantly increased in tumor tissues or serum from NSCLC patients as compared to those of control group. Correlation of lncRNA-XIST or HIF1A-AS1 expression between tumor tissues and serum from the same individuals was confirmed in NSCLC patients. Moreover, serum levels of XIST and HIF1A-AS1 were significantly decreased after surgical treatment as compared to pre-operative. The ROC curves illustrated strong separation between the NSCLC patients and control group, with an AUC of 0.834 (95% CI: 0.726-0.935; P < 0.001) for XIST and 0.876 (95% CI: 0.793-0.965; P < 0.001) for HIF1A-AS1, however, the combination of XIST and HIF1A-AS1 yielded an AUC of 0.931 (95% CI: 0.869-0.990; P < 0.001), which was significantly improved as compared to XIST or HIF1A-AS1 alone. Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that increased serum XIST and HIF1A-AS1 could be used as a predictive biomarker for NSCLC screening, and that combination of XIST and HIF1A-AS1 had a higher positive diagnostic efficiency of NSCLC than XIST or HIF1A-AS1 alone.