Clinicopathological significance of SLP-2 overexpression in human gallbladder cancer

Several studies have indicated that overexpression of stomatin-like protein 2 (SLP-2) has been identified in several types of cancer. However, its role and clinical relevance in gallbladder cancer (GBC) is unknown. The purpose of this study was to reveal the prognostic significance of SLP-2 in GBC. The SLP-2 expression was examined at mRNA and protein levels by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), and immunohistochemistry in GBC tissues and adjacent noncancerous tissues. Statistical analyses were applied to test the associations between SLP-2 expression, clinicopathologic factors, and prognosis. Immunohistochemistry and qRT-PCR showed that the protein and mRNA expression levels of SLP-2 were both significantly higher in GBC tissues than in adjacent noncancerous tissues. In addition, immunohistochemistry analysis showed that SLP-2 expression was significantly correlated with histological grade (P <0.001), pathologic T stage (P?=?0.019), clinical stage (P?=?0.001), and lymph node metastasis (P?=?0.026). The Kaplan–Meier survival curves indicated that patients with high expression of SLP-2 had shorter overall survival than those with low expression (P <0.001). Meanwhile, the Cox multivariate analysis indicated that high expressions of SLP-2 were an independent prognostic factor for patients with GBC. These data showed that SLP-2 may play an important role in human GBC tumorigenesis, and SLP-2 might serve as a novel prognostic marker in human GBC.     

Evaluating the expression of CARMA3 as a prognostic tumor marker in renal cell carcinoma

Increased expression of CARMA3 has been reported to be involved in tumorigenesis and tumor progression of several cancer types. The aim of our study is to investigate the prognostic role of CARMA3 expression in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Real-time quantitative PCR was performed to detect CARMA3 mRNA expression level in 31 paired samples of RCC and adjacent noncancerous renal tissues. Subsequently, extensive immunohistochemistry was performed to detect CARMA3 protein expression in 114 RCC cases. Clinicopathological data for these patients were evaluated. The prognostic significance was assessed using the Kaplan–Meier survival estimates and log-rank tests. CARMA3 mRNA expression was significantly higher in RCC tissues compared with adjacent noncancerous renal tissues (3.525?±?1.233 vs. 1.512?±?0.784, P?<?0.001). In addition, high CARMA3 expression in RCC tissues was significantly associated with tumor size (P?=?0.026), histological differentiation (P?=?0.039), tumor stage (P?=?0.006), and the presence of metastasis (P?<?0.001). Moreover, Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that patients with high CARMA3 expression also had a significantly poorer prognosis than those with low CARMA3 expression (log-rank test, P?<?0.001). Furthermore, multivariate analysis illustrated that CARMA3 overexpression might be an independent prognostic indicator for the survival of patients with RCC. In conclusion, this work shows that CARMA3 may serve as a novel and prognostic marker for RCC and play a role during the development and progression of the disease.     

Expression and clinical significance of STIP1 in papillary thyroid carcinoma

The aim of this study was to detect stress-induced phosphoprotein 1 (STIP1) expression in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and to analyze its association with prognosis of PTC patients. Immunohistochemistry was performed to detect the expression of STIP1 in 113 PTC tissues and paired adjacent noncancerous tissues. The χ2 test was used to analyze the relationship between STIP1 expression and clinicopathological characteristics. Survival curves were plotted by the Kaplan–Meier method and compared using the log-rank test. Survival data was evaluated using univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis. We identified abnormally elevated expression of STIP1 protein in PTC tissues compared to paired adjacent noncancerous tissues. Clinicopathological analysis showed that STIP1 expression was significantly correlated with tumor size (P?=?0.017), lymph node metastasis (P?=?0.007), and TNM stage (P?=?0.026). Patients with higher STIP1 expression had shorter overall survival time, whereas those with lower STIP1 expression had longer survival time. Multivariate analysis suggested that STIP1 expression might be an independent prognostic indicator (P?<?0.05) for the survival of patients with PTC. In conclusion, our findings provide evidences that positive expression of STIP1 in PTC may be important in the acquisition of an aggressive phenotype, and it is an independent biomarker for poor prognosis of patients with PTC.     

Expression of CHD1L in bladder cancer and its influence on prognosis and survival

Chromodomain helicase/ATPase DNA-binding protein 1-like (CHD1L) is overexpressed and highly associated with poor prognosis in many malignancies. However, the role of CHD1L in bladder cancer (BC) has not been thoroughly elucidated. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship of CHD1L expression with clinicopathological parameters and prognosis in BC. Immunohistochemistry was carried out to investigate the protein expression of CHD1L in 153 BC tissues and 87 adjacent noncancerous tissues. Our data found that CHD1L protein expression was significantly higher in BC tissues than in adjacent noncancerous tissues (P?<?0.001). CHD1L overexpression was significantly correlated with histologic grade (P?=?0.005) and tumor stage (P?=?0.009). The Kaplan–Meier survival analysis revealed that survival time of patients with high CHD1L expression was significantly shorter than that with low CHD1L expression. Multivariate analysis further demonstrated that CHD1L was an independent prognostic factor for patients with BC. In conclusion, CHD1L is likely to be a valuable marker for carcinogenesis and progression of BC. It might be used as an important diagnostic and prognostic marker for BC patients.     

Aberrant TIG1 methylation associated with its decreased expression and clinicopathological significance in hepatocellular carcinoma

Recently, it has been reported that tazarotene-induced gene 1 (TIG1) methylation was frequently detected in a variety of human cancers. However, the relationship between the TIG1 methylation and the characteristics of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unknown. The aim of present study was to observe the promoter methylation of TIG1 in HCC tissues and assess its prognostic significance for HCC. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction and methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction were used, respectively, to examine the mRNA expression and methylation status of TIG1 in 91 pairs of HCC and adjacent noncancerous tissues. The mRNA expression level of TIG1 was significantly lower in HCC tissues than in adjacent noncancerous tissues. The rate of TIG1 promoter methylation was significantly higher in HCC tissues than in adjacent noncancerous tissues (P?<?0.001). A strong correlation between downregulation and promoter methylation was found in these tumors (P?<?0.001). More importantly, TIG1 methylation status was related to tumor size (P?=?0.015), histological differentiation (P?=?0.004), and tumor stage (P?<?0.001). Kaplan–Meier survival analysis showed that TIG1 promoter hypermethylation was associated with a worse outcome in patients with HCC. Further, Cox multivariate analysis indicated that TIG1 methylation status was an independent prognostic factor for the overall survival rate of HCC patients. In conclusion, our data suggested that epigenetic silencing of TIG1 gene expression by promoter hypermethylation may play an important role in HCC.     

Overexpression and cytoplasmic accumulation of Hepl is associated with clinicopathological parameters and poor prognosis in non-small cell lung cancer

Hepl, first described in 2008, is the fourth member of the Crk-associated substrate (CAS) family and is specifically expressed in the lung. Compared to other CAS proteins, Hepl has a varying effect on cell migration in different cell types. We speculated that Hepl may play a role in lung cancer invasion and metastasis. We quantified the expression and subcellular localization of Hepl in 143 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tissues, adjacent noncancerous tissues, and eight lung cancer cell lines using Western blotting, immunohistochemistry, and immunofluorescent staining. Expression of Hepl was correlated with the clinicopathological features of NSCLC. Hepl was overexpressed in 72.3 % (103/143) of the NSCLC tissues, compared to the adjacent noncancerous lung tissues (P?=?0.022). Overexpression of Hepl was associated with lymph node metastasis and high TNM stage (P?=?0.005 and P?=?0.045, respectively). Kaplan–Meier survival curves and the log-rank test indicated that overexpression of Hepl correlated with poorer overall survival in NSCLC (P?<?0.001), and Cox regression analysis demonstrated that overexpression of Hepl was an independent prognostic factor in NSCLC. Furthermore, cytoplasmic accumulation of Hepl was observed in a high metastatic potential lung cancer cell lines (H1299 and BE1), but not in low metastatic potential cell lines (LTE and A549). This study reveals that Hepl is overexpressed in the nucleus and aberrantly accumulates in the cytoplasm of NSCLC cells, and indicates that Hepl may play a role in the progression of lung cancer, including lymph node metastasis and TNM stage. Additionally, Hepl may be a useful prognostic factor in lung cancer.     

Prognostic significance of USP22 as an oncogene in papillary thyroid carcinoma

Ubiquitin-specific protease 22 (USP22), a novel deubiquitinating enzyme, has been associated with metastasis, therapy resistance, and cell cycle progression. The purpose of this study was to investigate the expression level of USP22 in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) samples and to evaluate its clinical significance in PTC patients. USP22 expression was examined in 30 fresh PTC tissues and paired adjacent noncancerous tissues by real-time quantitative RT-PCR. Immunohistochemistry for USP22 was performed on additional 156 PTC tissues. The clinical significance of USP22 expression was analyzed. We found that the expression levels of USP22 mRNA and protein in PTC tissues were both significantly higher than those in noncancerous tissues. Clinicopathological analysis showed that USP22 expression was significantly correlated with tumor size (p?=?0.036), extracapsular invasion (p?=?0.012), multifocality (p?=?0.014), lymph node metastasis (p?=?0.022), distant metastasis (p?=?0.005), and TNM stage (p?=?0.002). The Kaplan–Meier survival curves revealed that USP22 expression was associated with poor prognosis in PTC patients. USP22 expression was an independent prognostic marker of overall patient survival in a multivariate analysis. Our findings suggest that USP22 is an independent predictor of poor prognosis of PTC patients.     

Prognostic value of centromere protein-A expression in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer

Altered expression of centromere protein-A (CENP-A) is observed in various types of human cancers. However, the clinical significance and pathological role of CENP-A in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) remains unclear. The main objective of this investigation was to clarify the relationships between CENP-A expression and the clinicopathological features of patients with EOC. Real-time quantitative PCR and Western blot were performed to examine CENP-A expression in 20 pairs of fresh-frozen EOC tissues and corresponding noncancerous tissues. Using immunohistochemistry, we performed a retrospective study of the CENP-A expression levels on 120 archival EOC paraffin-embedded samples. Prognostic outcomes correlated with CENP-A were examined using Kaplan–Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards model. Our results showed that the expression levels of CENP-A mRNA and protein in EOC tissues were both significantly higher than those in noncancerous tissues. By immunohistochemistry, the data revealed that high CENP-A expression was significantly correlated with pathological grade (P?=?0.02) and International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage (P?=?0.006). Consistent with these results, we found that high expression of CENP-A was significantly correlated with poor survival in EOC patients (P?<?0.001). Furthermore, Cox regression analyses showed that CENP-A expression was an independent predictor of overall survival. Our data suggest that CENP-A could play an important role in EOC and might serve as a valuable prognostic marker and potential target for gene therapy in the treatment of EOC.     

Prognostic significance of BMP7 as an oncogene in hepatocellular carcinoma

This study aims to evaluate the association between BMP7 tissue expression and patient prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The expression of BMP7 mRNA in HCC was characterized using real-time PCR and 30 pairs of fresh frozen HCC tissues and corresponding noncancerous tissues. BMP7 protein expression in HCC was confirmed using immunohistochemistry on a tissue microarray chip. Finally, BMP7 expression was correlated with conventional clinicopathological features of HCC and patient outcome. The expression of BMP7 mRNA and protein in HCC cells was much higher than in normal hepatic cells. Our results showed that the high expression of BMP7 in HCC was related to tumor size (p?<?0.001), histological differentiation (p?=?0.041), serum AFP (p?=?0.007), and tumor stage (p?<?0.001). Kaplan–Meier survival analysis showed that a high-expression level of BMP7 resulted in a significantly poor prognosis of HCC patients. Multivariate analysis revealed that BMP7 expression level was an independent prognostic parameter for the overall survival rate of HCC patients. These findings provide evidence that a high-expression level of BMP7 serves as a biomarker for poor prognosis for HCC. Thus, we speculate that BMP7 may be a potential target of antiangiogenic therapy for HCC.     

DLC-1 is a candidate biomarker methylated and down-regulated in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is one of the most aggressive malignancies in humans, and its prognosis is generally poor even after surgery. Many advances have been made to understand the pathogenesis of PDA; however, the molecular mechanisms that lead to pancreatic carcinogenesis are still not clearly understood. The aims of this study were to investigate the relationship between DLC-1 methylation status and clinicopathological characteristics of PDA patients and evaluate the role of DLC-1 methylation status in PDA. The expression of DLC-1 mRNA in PDA tissues was analyzed by real-time PCR. The methylation status of DLC-1 was analyzed by methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (MSP). Furthermore, we determined the prognostic importance of DLC-1 methylation status in PDA patients. Our results showed that the expression level of DLC-1 mRNA in PDA tissues was lower than that in non-cancerous tissues. The rate of DLC-1 promoter methylation was significantly higher in PDA tissues than in adjacent non-cancerous tissues (p?<?0.001). Downregulation of DLC-1 was strongly correlated with promoter methylation (P?=?0.003). The presence of DLC-1 methylation in PDA tissue samples was significantly correlated with clinical stage (P?=?0.005), histological differentiation (P?=?0.05), and lymph node metastasis (P?=?0.006). Kaplan–Meier survival analysis showed that DLC-1 methylation status was inversely correlated with overall survival of the PDA patients. Further, Cox multivariate analysis indicated that DLC-1 methylation status was an independent prognostic factor for the overall survival rate of PDA patients. In conclusion, our data suggest that downregulation of DLC-1 may be explained by DNA methylation; DLC-1 may be a biomarker for PDA.     

High fibroblast growth factor 19 (FGF19) expression predicts worse prognosis in invasive ductal carcinoma of breast

Metabolic diseases like diabetes and obesity are major risk factors for breast cancer. Aberrant expression of metabolic effectors such as fibroblast growth factor 19 (FGF19) could be therefore associated with the disease. The expression of FGF19 was examined in 193 archival breast tumor samples by immunohistochemistry and evaluated semi-quantitatively by determining the staining index and correlating it with clinicopathological parameters using Fisher's exact test. The correlation between FGF19 expression and 5-year disease-specific survival rate was determined using the univariate Kaplan–Meier analysis. The prognostic value of FGF19 expression was evaluated using the multivariate Cox regression analysis. Of the 193 tumors analyzed, 40 % were classified with low FGF19 expression, whereas 60 % were categorized as tumors with high FGF19 expression. There was a highly significant correlation between high FGF19 expression and patients' age (p?=?0.008) as well as 5-year disease-specific survival (p?=?0.001). However, FGF19 expression did not show any significant correlations with other clinicopathological parameters, including hormonal status, tumor grade, tumor size, or lymph node status. Univariate Kaplan–Meier log rank analysis showed that patients with high FGF19 expression exhibited a significantly shorter disease-specific 5-year survival (p?=?0.007). This effect was exacerbated by lymph node metastasis (p?=?0.001), negative estrogen receptor (ER) status (p?=?0.002), or old age (p?=?0.013). Multivariate analysis showed that high FGF19 expression could be an independent prognostic marker of disease-specific survival in breast cancer patients (p?=?0.030). Quantification of FGF19 expression appears to provide valuable prognostic information in breast cancer, particularly in older patients with lymph node metastasis and negative ER status.     

Association between single nucleotide polymorphisms of the transforming growth factor-beta1 gene and overall survival in unresectable locally advanced non-small-cell lung cancer patients treated with radio(chemo)therapy in a Chinese population

Transmembrane protease, serine 4 (TMPRSS4), is a novel type II transmembrane serine protease that is highly expressed on the cell surface in pancreatic, thyroid, lung, and other cancer tissues, although its oncogenic significance and molecular mechanisms are unknown. In a series of 109 primary breast cancer patients, we performed a comprehensive analysis of TMPRSS4 expression using immunohistochemistry. The relationship between TMPRSS4 expression and the clinicopathological characteristics or prognosis was evaluated. Results showed that breast cancer tissues exhibited higher levels of TMPRSS4 expression compared with benign tissues (65.1 versus 17.5 %, P < 0.001). High expression of TMPRSS4 was significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis (P < 0.001), high pathological grade (P = 0.001), and tumor size >2 cm (P = 0.006), but not correlated with other clinicopathological parameters, including the patient’s age (P = 0.289), menopausal status (P = 0.300), histological subtype (P = 0.418), and status of estrogen receptor (ER) (P = 0.913), progesterone receptor (PR) (P = 0.247), and HER-2 (P = 0.882). Patients with high expression of TMPRSS4 had shorter OS and DFS than those with low expression (P = 0.0009 and P = 0.0044, respectively). TMPRSS4 expression and lymph node metastasis were independent prognostic factors for both OS and DFS by multivariate analysis. Based on our results, we propose TMPRSS4 as a putative biological marker for breast cancer and as an indicator of poor prognosis.     

Overexpression of keratin 17 is associated with poor prognosis in epithelial ovarian cancer

The aim of this study was to investigate the association between keratin 17 (K17) expression and the clinicopathological features of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). K17 expression was detected by real-time quantitative RT-PCR in EOC and adjacent noncancerous tissues. In addition, K17 expression was analyzed by immunohistochemistry in 104 clinicopathologically characterized EOC cases. The expression levels of K17 mRNA and protein in EOC tissues were both significantly higher than those in noncancerous tissues. In addition, positive expression of K17 correlated with the clinical stage (p?=?0.001). Furthermore, Kaplan–Meier survival analysis showed that a high expression level of K17 resulted in a significantly poor prognosis of EOC patients. Multivariate analysis revealed that EOC expression level was an independent prognostic parameter for the overall survival rate of EOC patients. Our data are the first to suggest that increased K17 expression in EOC is significantly associated with aggressive progression and poor prognosis. K17 may be an important molecular marker for predicting the carcinogenesis, progression, and prognosis of EOC.