Expression of ZFX Protein and its Relationship with Pathology and Prognosis in Gastric Cancer
CUI Ji-fang, WANG Hong-lei, ZHAO Yong-jie, et al.
Department of Gastroenterology, Tianjin People' s Hospital, Tianjin (300122), China
Abstract:
Objective To explore the relationship between the expression of zinc finger X-linked protein (ZFX) and clinicopathological parameters and prognosis in gastric cancer (GC). Methods Surgical GC tissue samples and paired paracancerous tissues from patients undergoing resection were selected from January 2013 to December 2015. The mRNA expression of ZFX in 43 cases of GC tissues\ and corresponding paracancerous tissue were determined by quantitative real time-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Immunohistochemistry (IHC) technology was adopted to measure the expression of ZFX protein in 114 cases of GC tissue and corresponding paracancerous tissue. The relationship between ZFX expression and clinicopathological parameters were explored. Kaplan-Meier was used to further analyze the overall survival (OS) of GC patients. Results qRT-PCR results showed that the mRNA level of ZFX was significantly up-regulated in GC tissues than that in paired paracancerous tissues. As for the IHC consequence, ZFX protein was located in cell nucleus. The positive expression rate of ZFX protein in GC group was about 76.3%, while that in the control group was only 19.3%, the difference was statistically significant (P<0.01). The expression of ZFX protein was closely related to tumor differentiation, lymph node metastasis and tumor infiltration depth (P<0.05), but not associated with age, gender, tumor location and TNM stage (P>0.05). Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed that OS in ZFX negative expression group were higher than those in the ZFX positive group (P<0.05). Conclusion ZFX is highly expressed in GC tissues both on gene level and protein level and closely related to clinicopathological parameters and prognosis of patients, which strongly suggests that ZFX is related to the initial and development of gastric cancer, and it is considered as a potential predictor for prognosis of GC patients.
