Elevated levels of epithelial cell transforming sequence 2 predicts poor prognosis for prostate cancer

Abstract

Epithelial cell transforming sequence 2 (Ect2) was originally reported as an oncogene that is involved in several types of human cancers. However, little is known about its expression and function in prostate cancer. Immunohistochemical staining for Ect2 was performed on a human tissue microarray. The staining intensity was analyzed in association with clinical pathological parameters such as Gleason score, pathological grade, clinical stage, tumor invasion, lymph node and distant metastasis. Furthermore, we repeated such analysis and investigated the prognostic value of Ect2 using the TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas) Dataset. Our immunohistochemical results showed that the expression levels of Ect2 protein were enhanced in human prostate cancer tissues. There existed positive correlations between the expression levels of Ect2 and several clinicopathological parameters, including advanced clinical stage, enhanced tumor invasion and lymph node metastasis. Similarly, we found that the expression levels of Ect2 were positively related to Gleason score, tumor invasion, lymph node metastasis and high distant metastasis in the TCGA Dataset. Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that lower levels of Ect2 mRNA predicted higher overall survivals and biochemical recurrence (BCR)-free survivals in all patients or non-metastatic patients. Multivariate analysis by Cox regression showed that the expression of Ect2 could be an independent prognostic marker of poor BCR-free survivals. Therefore, levels of Ect2 may serve as a novel marker for the diagnosis or prognosis of prostate cancer.

Expression and prognostic significance of ECT2 in invasive breast cancer

“…ECT2 was highly expressed in prostate cancer, but it was slightly or not expressed in normal prostate tissue, and the difference was statistically significant. Overexpression of ECT2 was closely correlated with the clinical stage, tumour invasion and lymph node metastasis of prostate cancer, and survival analysis showed that it was an independent prognostic index in patients with prostate cancer 9. In gastrointestinal tumours, such as gastric cancer, colorectal cancer and esophageal cancer, ECT2 was highly expressed and the high expression of ECT2 was an effective marker as well as an important prognostic factor for poor prognosis 3 7 10.…”

P53 and Protein Phosphorylation Regulate the Oncogenic Role of Epithelial Cell Transforming 2 (ECT2)

“…High protein expression of ECT2 was reported in prostate cancer [13], lung cancer [14], colorectal cancer [15], and gastric cancer [16]. Mislocalization of ECT2 was found in ovarian cancer [17], osteosarcoma [12], and cervical cancer cells [18].…”

High levels of glioma tumor suppressor candidate region gene 1 predicts a poor prognosis for prostate cancer

“…Cytoplasmic staining was considered indicative of a positive signal on the basis of the antibody specification sheet. The staining intensity and percentage were used for semi-quantitative scoring of the expression intensity in each case, as described by a previous study (20). The staining intensity was scored as follows: Negative, weak, moderate and strong staining were scored as 0, 1, 2 and 3 points, respectively.…”