Abstract
The aims of this study were to simultaneously evaluate the expression of Y-box binding protein-1 (YB-1) in non-neoplastic rectal tissue and rectal cancer tissue, and to collect clinical follow-up data for individual patients. Additionally, we aimed to investigate the developmental functions and prognostic value of YB-1 in rectal cancer. We performed immunohistochemical studies to examine YB-1 expression in tissue samples from 80 patients with rectal cancer, 30 patients with rectal tubular adenoma, and 30 patients with rectitis. The mean YB-1 histological scores for rectal cancer, rectal tubular adenoma, and rectitis tissue specimens were 205.5, 164.3, and 137.7, respectively. Shorter disease-free and overall survival times were found in patients with rectal cancer who had higher YB-1 expression than in those with lower expression (38.2 months vs. 52.4 months, P = 0.013; and 44.4 months vs. 57.3 months, P = 0.008, respectively). Our results indicate that YB-1 expression is higher in rectal cancer tissue than in rectal tubular adenoma and rectitis tissue and that it may be an independent prognostic factor for rectal cancer.
Highlights
Rectal cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors of the digestive system
Rectal cancer cells exhibited diffuse Y-box binding protein-1 (YB-1) staining in the cytoplasm (Figs. 1–3)
The results indicated that clinical stage, adjuvant chemoradiotherapy, and YB-1 expression correlated with disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) and that they may be independent prognostic factors that affect the survival times of patients with rectal cancer (Table 3)
Summary
Rectal cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors of the digestive system. The introduction of adjuvant chemoradiotherapy for the treatment of rectal cancer improved survival rates, but a high mortality rate is still associated with the malignancy. The main factors that affect the prognosis of patients with rectal cancer include tumor stage, the distance between the tumor and anus, and the circumferential resection margin [1,2]. Y-box binding protein-1 (YB-1) is the most evolutionarily conserved nucleic acid-binding protein known [3] It is involved in the regulation of transcription and translation, DNA repair, alternative splicing of mRNA, RNA repair, cell proliferation, apoptosis, and drug resistance [4,5,6,7]. An increasing number of studies have demonstrated an association between YB-1 and PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0119385 March 19, 2015
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