Abstract
BackgroundExpression of periostin is an indicator of epithelial-mesenchymal transition in cancer but a detailed analysis of periostin expression in prostate cancer has not been conducted so far.MethodsHere, we evaluated periostin expression in prostate cancer cells and peritumoural stroma immunohistochemically in two independent prostate cancer cohorts, including a training cohort (n = 93) and a test cohort (n = 325). Metastatic prostate cancers (n = 20), hormone refractory prostate cancers (n = 19) and benign prostatic tissues (n = 38) were also analyzed.ResultsIn total, strong epithelial periostin expression was detectable in 142 of 418 (34.0%) of prostate carcinomas and in 11 of 38 benign prostate glands (28.9%). Increased periostin expression in carcinoma cells was significantly associated with high Gleason score (p < 0.01) and advanced tumour stage (p < 0.05) in the test cohort. Whereas periostin expression was weak or absent in the stroma around normal prostate glands, strong periostin expression in tumour stroma was found in most primary and metastatic prostate cancers. High stromal periostin expression was associated with higher Gleason scores (p < 0.001). There was a relationship between stromal periostin expression and shortened PSA relapse free survival times in the training cohort (p < 0.05).ConclusionsOur data indicate that periostin up-regulation is related to increased tumour aggressiveness in prostate cancer and might be a promising target for therapeutical interventions in primary and metastatic prostate cancer.
Highlights
Expression of periostin is an indicator of epithelial-mesenchymal transition in cancer but a detailed analysis of periostin expression in prostate cancer has not been conducted so far
Periostin expression can be induced by vascular injury which in turn induces vas
Periostin expression was found in both epithelial cancer cells and in peritumoural stroma
Summary
Expression of periostin is an indicator of epithelial-mesenchymal transition in cancer but a detailed analysis of periostin expression in prostate cancer has not been conducted so far. Periostin (POSTN) is a 93 kDa N-glycoprotein, first described in 1993 in mouse osteoblasts as osteoblast-specific factor 2 (OSF-2). It shows homology with the cell adhesion molecules fasciclin 1 (drosophila) and betaIgH3 (human), sharing features that are thought to explain some of its functional characteristics [1,2] like involvement in cell adhesion and osteoblast recruitment [3]. High expression of periostin protein or mRNA was detected in most solid tumours including breast, colon, head and neck, pancreatic, papillary thyroid, ovarian, lung, gastric and liver carcinoma, as well as neuroblastoma [9,13,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33]. Suggested effects of periostin on tumour cells include increased growth and resistance against hypoxia and chemotherapeutics [16,17]
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