High-expression of DJ-1 and Loss of PTEN Associated with Tumor Metastasis and Correlated with Poor Prognosis of Gastric Carcinoma

Abstract

Background and aims: DJ-1 and PTEN have been shown to involve in multiple cell processes and play an important role in cancer development and progression. However, their relationship with gastric carcinoma (GC) has not been identified yet. The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship of DJ-1 and phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) with clinicopathological parameters and prognosis in GC.Methods: 114 specimens were collected from GC patients and expression of DJ-1 and PTEN in tissue microarray was evaluated by immunohistochemical staining. Correlation between immunostainings and clinicopathological parameters, follow-up data of patients, was analyzed statistically.Results: High expression of DJ-1 was found in 66.7% (76/114) and associated with tumor depth (P=0.003), lymph node metastasis (P=0.011), distant metastasis (P=0.001) and advanced clinical stage (P=0.001). Loss or downregulation of PTEN was found in 58.7% (67/114) and associated with advanced clinical stage (P=0.018) and high expression of DJ-1 in tumor cells (P=0.006). In univariate survival analysis, high-expression of DJ-1 or loss of PTEN was significantly associated with poor prognosis of GC patients. However, only tumor depth (P=0.011) and coexistence of DJ-1 and PTEN abnormal expression (P=0.009) emerged as strong independent prognostic factors for overall survival of GC patients.Conclusions: the present study indicates that DJ-1 and PTEN may play their roles in progression of GC in a cooperating pattern. Co-existence of abnormal DJ-1 and PTEN expression is likely to serve as an independent predictive factor for prognosis of GC patients.

Roles of PTEN (Phosphatase and Tensin Homolog) in Gastric Cancer Development and Progression

“…These studies indicated that reduction or absence of PTEN expression is a dynamic process during the course of gastric cancer progression, and that PTEN levels can be used as an indicator to diagnose the pathological state of gastric cancer. Other studies exploring the role and mechanism of action of PTEN in gastric cancer, found similar results Bai et al, 2013;Li et al, 2013).…”

Microrna-136 promotes proliferation and invasion ingastric cancer cells through Pten/Akt/P-Akt signaling pathway

“…It has been well established that PTEN may serve functions in a number of biological processes, including cell proliferation, the cell cycle, apoptosis, migration, invasion, metastasis, metabolism, differentiation, transcription and translation through negative regulation of the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway (38)(39)(40)(41)(42). Li et al (24) reported that in gastric cancer, PTEN expression is low in tumor tissues and was associated with advanced clinical stage and poor prognosis of patients with gastric cancer. Zheng et al (43) identified that decreased PTEN expression was significantly associated with depth of invasion, lymphatic invasion, lymph node metastasis, liver metastasis and Union Internationale Contre le Cancer staging of gastric cancer (44).…”

“…3A). A low expression of PTEN was previously demonstrated that in gastric cancer tissues, and PTEN expression was associated with the formation and progression of gastric cancer (24)(25)(26)(27). A luciferase reporter assay was performed to evaluate whether PTEN is a direct target gene of miR-136.…”

miR-106b promotes cell invasion and metastasis via PTEN mediated EMT in ESCC

“…Phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN), a key negative regulator of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt) pathway, is also a direct target of miR-106b (13). One previous study had reported that PTEN served as a tumor-suppressing gene in cancer invasion and metastasis (14). Additionally, PTEN is a key factor in inducing EMT (15).…”