Abstract 770: Association of YAP expression with colorectal cancer progression.

Abstract

Abstract YAP, a crucial transcriptional coactivator in the Hippo signaling pathway, is upregulated in several human tumors and suggested to promote tumor progression. However, its expression level and role in colorectal cancer (CRC) remain unknown. In this study, YAP expression and the correlation between YAP expression and CRC clinical features were investigated. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and Western blotting were performed on 30 matched pairs of fresh CRC tissues and adjacent normal mucosae from 30 CRC patients. Immunohistochemical analysis was performed on 116 matched pairs of paraffin-embedded CRC tissues and adjacent normal mucosae, as well as in 73 cases of metastatic lymph nodes. Our results showed YAP expression level in CRC or lymphatic metastatic tissues was clearly higher than that in normal mucosae (P<0.01), whereas that in CRC tissues with lymphatic metastasis was higher than that in tissues without lymphatic metastasis (P<0.05). YAP expression is associated with serosal invasion, lymphatic metastasis, lymph node ratio, remote metastasis, Dukes stage, and the carcinoembryonic antigen level (P<0.05). It is also an independent predictor of the survival of CRC patients (P<0.05). Patients with high YAP expression level exhibited lower overall survival rates than those with low expression (P=0.001). Further analysis showed that YAP predicted CRC prognosis primarily for patients with late-clinical-stage CRC (P=0.002). These findings suggest that YAP is a potential marker for predicting CRC progression and prognosis. YAP upregulation is associated with poor overall survival time in CRC patients, particularly in those with late stage of the disease. Therefore, YAP may be an effective therapeutic target for late-stage tumors. Citation Format: Daxing Xie, Xiangyang Wang, Jiang Min, Xiaolan Li, Jubo Hu, Jianping Gong. Association of YAP expression with colorectal cancer progression. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 770. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-770 Note: This abstract was not presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013 because the presenter was unable to attend.