Vimentin Protein In Situ Expression Predicts Less Tumor Metastasis and Overall Better Survival of Endometrial Carcinoma

Abstract

Background. Vimentin, a cytoplasmic intermediate filament protein, has been recently identified to be a prognostic biomarker in some cancers. However, the function of vimentin in endometrial carcinoma (EC) remains unclear. Our study aimed at evaluating vimentin expression in EC and preliminarily exploring the role of vimentin in EC progression. Methods. In total, 341 EC patients who underwent surgical follow-up were enrolled in the retrospective study. Vimentin expression levels in EC tissues were analyzed using immunohistochemistry. Furthermore, the vimentin (VIM) gene expression levels in 547 samples in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were analyzed. To examine the prognostic value of vimentin in EC, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was performed, and a Cox model was established. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was also conducted using the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database to explore the role of vimentin in EC progression. Results. Negative vimentin expression in EC correlated significantly with lymph node metastasis, deep myometrium invasion (MI), lymph vascular space invasion (LVSI), advanced Federation International of Gynecology and Obstetrics Association (FIGO) stages (III and IV), and high tumor grade. Vimentin negativity was more common in type 2 EC than that in type 1 EC, and vimentin-negative patients had poorer overall survival compared with vimentin-positive patients. The results of GSEA suggested that vimentin may interact with classical pathways in EC. Conclusions. Negative vimentin expression correlates with tumor metastasis and worse overall survival in EC, suggesting that it may be an excellent prognostic biomarker for this disease. The mechanism by which vimentin contributes to EC progression needs to be explored in the future.

Single-cell profiling of low-stage endometrial cancers identifies low epithelial vimentin expression as a marker of recurrent disease

“…Our data clearly shows that loss of vimentin expression is highly prognostic in the subset of patients with FIGO I tumors as well as in endometrioid patients and in the full cohort. Our data is in line with previous reports 51 , 52 describing an association between loss of vimentin expression and non-endometrioid tumors, higher FIGO stage, higher tumor grade and worse patient outcome and we here add important information on vimentin in low-stage tumors. Our data also indicate that the cut-off for detecting low expression of vimentin is broad, as both loss and low expression (lowest quartile) predict poor prognosis, further supporting the robustness of this marker to identify patients at risk of recurrence.…”

PPP1R14B is a diagnostic prognostic marker in patients with uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma

“…To further clarify the possible molecular mechanism by which PPP1R14B promotes tumour development, GO analysis, KEGG analysis, and GSEA were performed. The results showed that PPP1R14B was negatively associated with intermediate filament‐related pathways, and intermediate filaments could inhibit UCEC metastasis and invasion 51,52 . In addition, hormone activity and oestrogen signalling pathways were found to be enriched.…”

“…The results showed that PPP1R14B was negatively associated with intermediate filamentrelated pathways, and intermediate filaments could inhibit UCEC metastasis and invasion. 51,52 In addition, hormone activity and oestrogen signalling pathways were found to be enriched. Given that endometrial cancer formation is associated with dysplasia caused by oestrogen overstimulation, this result suggests that involvement in this process may also be one of the mechanisms by which PPP1R14B promotes endometrial cancer development.…”

The Phytochemical α-Mangostin Inhibits Cervical Cancer Cell Proliferation and Tumor Growth by Downregulating E6/E7-HPV Oncogenes and KCNH1 Gene Expression

“…On the other hand, in certain malignancies such as endometrial cancer, the lack of vimentin expression has been correlated significantly with lymph node metastasis, deep myometrium invasion, lymph vascular space invasion, advanced stages (III and IV), and higher tumor grade. Indeed, vimentin-negative patients had poorer overall survival compared with vimentin-positive patients [38]. Additionally, it has also been described an interesting participation of vimentin against certain viral infections [37].…”