Prognostic significance of membrane-associated mucins 1 and 4 in gastric adenocarcinoma

Abstract

Abstract. Aberrant expression of mucins is likely associated with cancer biology as alterations in the expression and/or glycosylation patterns of various mucins have been noted. Expression of the mucin family in gastric cancers has been reported in numerous studies, but the results are conflicting. Therefore, we investigated the potential use of mucin (MUC)1 and 4 as prognostic markers in gastric cancer according to histological subtype. Three-hundred and sixty-five gastric adenocarcinoma patients who underwent surgical resection were selected for this study. Among the 365 gastric cancer samples tested here, 34% consisted of early gastric cancer and 66% were advanced. In terms of location, 68.7% of the cohort had intestinal-type cancer and 30.7% had diffusetype. We constructed tissue microarrays with formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded blocks of gastric cancer and these microarrays were evaluated for phenotypic expression of MUC1/4 using monoclonal antibodies. Two-hundred and ninety-two patients (92.7%) were positive for MUC1 and 216 (60.5%) were positive for MUC4. MUC1 expression was not correlated with any other clinicopathological variables such as age, gender, depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis, Lauren classification or recurrence. However, loss of MUC4 expression was significantly correlated with recurrence (p= 0.033). MUC4 expression was also significantly correlated with better disease-free survival (p= 0.049) and particularly in the intestinal-type (p= 0.018). Our present findings demonstrated that loss of MUC4 expression can be used as a prognostic marker in gastric cancer. Loss of MUC4 expression is a prognostic indicator of increased recurrence and poor disease-free survival in patients with gastric cancer.

Prognostic Role of a Multimarker Analysis of Circulating Tumor Cells in Advanced Gastric and Gastroesophageal Adenocarcinomas

“…In contrast, our assay combines the advantage of dual (mucin 1- and EpCAM-based) immunomagnetic enrichment of disseminated tumor cells and subsequent real-time RT-PCR of a spectrum of cancer-associated transcripts. Our dual immunomagnetic enrichment procedure was based on the specific antibodies VU1D9 and BM7 capturing EpCAM and mucin 1 antigens, which are highly expressed in gastric [20,21] and esophageal [22,23] cancer tissue.…”

Gastric mucin expression in first-degree relatives of gastric cancer patients

“…Diffuse-type neoplasms are considered to be poorly differentiated and arise in normal gastric mucosa [2]. Recently, attempts have been made to more accurately classify gastric adenocarcinomas using immununohistochemical staining [3][4][5]. This method identifies surface gastric and small intestinal mucins.…”

Identification and bioinformatics analysis of overlapping differentially expressed genes in depression, papillary thyroid cancer and uterine fibroids

“…Of the overlapping DEGs associated with depression, PTC and UF in the present study, ATF3 directly interacts with several key cancer-associated proteins, including p53, E6 and androgen receptor ( 37 ) and similarly, MUC1 is aberrantly overexpressed in human breast cancer and other types of cancer ( 38 , 39 ). ATF3 is an endoplasmic reticulum stress transcription factor, which has also been demonstrated to be significantly associated with depression- and addiction-like behavior in rats ( 40 ).…”