Abstract
BackgroundHeat shock factor 1 (HSF1) was initially identified as a transcription factor encoding heat shock proteins, which assist in refolding or degrading damaged proteins. Recent studies have reported that HSF1 can act as an oncogene that regulates tumour progression. The present study aimed to elucidate the clinicopathological significance and prognostic value of HSF1 expression in gastric cancer (GC).MethodsThe data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were used to analyse HSF1 expression in GC and normal tissues, while 8 pairs of freshly frozen tissue samples were used to investigate HSF1 expression at the mRNA and protein levels in GC tissues and adjacent normal tissues using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and western blotting assays. The correlations between HSF1 expression and clinicopathological parameters, including the survival rate, were investigated in 117 GC tissue samples by immunohistochemical analysis.ResultsThe results of bioinformatics analysis, qRT-PCR, and western blot showed that HSF1 expression was higher in GC tissues than in normal tissues. High HSF1 expression was found in 54.7% (64/117) patients. Patients with high HSF1 expression had larger tumour size (P = 0.001), advanced Bornmann classification (P = 0.002), advanced depth of invasion (P = 0.015), lymph node metastasis (P<0.001), distant metastasis (P = 0.011) and tumour-node-metastasis (P<0.001). Moreover, the Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazards analyses indicated that high HSF1 expression was significantly associated with poor overall survival and recurrence-free survival in GC patients and that high HSF1 expression was an independent prognostic factor for the long-term survival in GC patients.ConclusionsTaken together, our results show that high HSF1 expression is significantly correlated with advanced tumour progression and poor prognosis. In addition, HSF1 expression can serve as a biomarker for the prognosis of patients with GC.
Highlights
Heat shock factor 1 (HSF1) was initially identified as a transcription factor encoding heat shock proteins, which assist in refolding or degrading damaged proteins
HSF1 was highly expressed in gastric cancer (GC) tissues compared with adjacent normal tissues To evaluate HSF1 expression in GC tissues, we first analysed HSF1 mRNA expression in the The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohort
Associations of HSF1 expression with clinical parameters in GC To explore the associations between HSF1 expression and GC clinicopathologic characteristics, we performed immunohistochemistry to detect HSF1 expression in the GC tissue array, which contained 117 cases of GC tissue from GC patients
Summary
Heat shock factor 1 (HSF1) was initially identified as a transcription factor encoding heat shock proteins, which assist in refolding or degrading damaged proteins. Recent studies have reported that HSF1 can act as an oncogene that regulates tumour progression. The present study aimed to elucidate the clinicopathological significance and prognostic value of HSF1 expression in gastric cancer (GC). Despite advances in surgery and chemotherapy, the prognosis of patients with advanced GC remains poor [3]. Heat shock factor 1 (HSF1) was initially identified as a transcription factor upregulating genes that encode heat shock proteins (HSPs), which assist in refolding or degrading damaged proteins [4]. HSF1 has been revealed to modulate the endoplasmic
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