Expression profiles of three proteins in various cancerous tissues of digestive system

Abstract

A variety of gastrointestinal tumors are the most malignancies with high morbidity and mortality globally. The previous studies show that there are abnormal expressions of TATA-box binding protein associated factor 1 like (<italic>TAF</italic>1<italic>L</italic>), stomatin-like protein 1 (<italic>STOML</italic>1) and stomatin-like protein 2 (<italic>STOML</italic>2) genes in oral, esophageal and colorectal cancer lesions. To explore the potential roles of above three genes in the carcinogenesis of digestive system, the differential expressions of TAF1L, STOML1 and STOML2 in cancerous and paracancerous tissues are compared and analyzed by multiple immunohistochemical staining using microarray of 6 cancer tissues of esophagus, stomach, liver, pancreas, colon and rectum with matched paracancerous tissues. The results show that STOML2 is significantly overexpressed in all of 6 gastrointestinal cancers <inline-formula><mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M4"><mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo><mml:mi>P</mml:mi><mml:mo>&lt;</mml:mo><mml:mn mathvariant="normal">0.001</mml:mn><mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo></mml:math></inline-formula>, and STOML1, one of the same family member of STOML2, is highly expressed only in esophageal and liver cancers <inline-formula><mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M5"><mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo><mml:mi>P</mml:mi><mml:mo>&lt;</mml:mo><mml:mn mathvariant="normal">0.005</mml:mn><mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo></mml:math></inline-formula>. In addition, except for pancreatic cancer, TAF1L is also abnormal highly expressed in other 5 cancer tissues <inline-formula><mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M6"><mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo><mml:mi>P</mml:mi><mml:mo>&lt;</mml:mo><mml:mn mathvariant="normal">0.005</mml:mn><mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo></mml:math></inline-formula>. At the same lesion tissue section, STOML1, STOML2 and TAF1L proteins are colocated with the key protein MMP9 of epithelial-mesenchymal transformation in positive cells. This study indicates that the three proteins of TAF1L, STOML1 and STOML2 might have a wide range of cancer promoting effects in multiple cancer tissues in the digestive system.In addition, due to their different expression levels in a variety of cancer tissues, they have tissue specificity and different functional missions.Further exploration of the molecular pathological potential of TAF1L, STOML1 and STOML2 in the occurrence and development of malignant tumors in digestive system can make them serve as new molecular markers for early diagnosis, differential diagnosis, targeted therapy and prognosis prediction in multiple digestive tumors. <fig fig-type="abstract-image" id="F1" orientation="portrait" position="float"><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="1000-2618-2022-39-3-253/E85B5A24-8ED1-441e-8E1E-AB53DA3D3AE9-F001.jpg"/></fig>