Abstract
The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between the expression level of secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC) and the prognosis of postoperative patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). The expression level of SPARC was detected in the 89 ESCC tissue cases and 100 healthy esophageal mucosa cases, which served as the controls. Immunohistochemistry and reverse transcription‑polymerase chain reaction (RT‑PCR) were employed to evaluate the SPARC expression in cases with ESCC. RT‑PCR demonstrated that the positive rates of SPARC mRNA expression in ESCC were 71.91% (64/89). The positive rates of normal esophageal mucosa mRNA expression were 15.00% (15/100), which were significantly lower than that in the ESCC tissue samples. The difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). Immunohistochemical staining indicated that the positive expression rate of SPARC protein in the ESCC tissue samples was significantly higher than that in the esophageal mucosa tissue samples (65.17 vs. 8.00%; P<0.001). The expression of SPARC protein was negatively correlated with lymph node metastasis (P<0.05), which was not associated with the pathologic gross morphology, tumor differentiation degree or other clinical features. The survival of patients with ESCC was not associated with the expression level of SPARC protein (P>0.05), but was associated with the tumor location (P<0.05), differentiation (P<0.001) and staging (P<0.05). Thus, SPARC mRNA and protein were highly expressed in ESCC, and negatively correlated with lymph node metastasis, which was not associated with postoperative survival of ESCC patients. Thus, detection of SPARC mRNA and protein expression levels may facilitate early diagnosis and prognosis assessment of ESCC.
Highlights
Esophageal cancer is a common type of digestive tract cancer, and the province of Jiangsu is a high incidence area [1,2,3]
Adjuvant therapy, gender, age, gross morphology, tumor invasion depth and lymph node metastasis were not identified as independent factors affecting the overall survival of postoperative patients (Fig. 1)
Tumor cells that express Secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC) in the nucleus are associated with a higher degree of malignancy [26]
Summary
Esophageal cancer is a common type of digestive tract cancer, and the province of Jiangsu is a high incidence area [1,2,3]. Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), esophageal adenocarcinoma (EA) and small cell carcinoma of the esophagus are the most common pathological types of esophageal cancer. As a non structural matrix glycoprotein its function is very complex, and it is involved in many physiological and pathological processes [12,13]. It is significant in the microenvironment of tumor cell activity and tumor growth [14]. It was observed that the SPARC protein was highly expressed in the fibrous cells and endothelial cells associated with invasive malignant tumors. The expression level of SPARC was closely associated with the occurrence, development and prognosis of tumors [13,15,16]
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