Correlation between secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine protein expression and the prognosis of postoperative patients exhibiting esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

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.

Low expression of SPARC in gastric cancer-associated fibroblasts leads to stemness transformation and 5-fluorouracil resistance in gastric cancer

“…Our previous work revealed that SPARC was mainly expressed in GCAFs in gastric cancer. However, most evidence supporting the role of SPARC in solid tumours is based on cancer cell-derived SPARC [17–19]. SPARC derived from different cellular origins is reported to be highly heterogeneous, and SPARC expressed by different cells may even lead to opposite clinical outcomes [20].…”

Prognostic role of secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine in patients with solid tumors

“…Briefly, the number of patients in each study ranged from 36 to 1,093, and a total of 5,939 patients from 11 countries were included in the present meta-analysis. The studies focused on solid tumors, including gastric cancer,11,16-18 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma,19,20 pancreatic cancer,8,21-25 lung cancer,10,26,27 breast cancer,4,9,28 colorectal cancer,29-32 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma,12,33 biliary tract cancer,7 and nasopharyngeal carcinoma 34. The positive rates of SPARC varied among the 9 solid tumors, and in the same tumor type, the positive rates of SPARC expressed in cancer and stromal cells were also different ( Figure 1B ).…”

SPARC: a potential target for functional nanomaterials and drugs

“…SPARC becomes a prominent target for esophageal cancer imaging (Zhao et al, 2022). SPARC is linked to unfavorable prognosis in patients with ESCC (Wu et al, 2017). SPARC has a strong correlation with MMP-2 expression, and this correlation could play a critical role in the growth of esophageal cancer (Yamashita et al, 2003).…”