KISS1 methylation and expression as predictors of disease progression in colorectal cancer patients

Figure 2 Correlations between KISS1 expression and methylation and clinicopathological factors in colorectal cancer patients. A: KISS1 transcript expression in 126 colorectal cancer (CRC) patients was determined by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The data are presented as the mean ± SD. KISS1 transcript expression was significantly lower in the methylated KISS1 group than in the unmethylated KISS1 group (^aP < 0.05 vs the methylated KISS1 group); B: KISS1/metastin protein levels in CRC tissues of the indicated genotypes were determined by Western blot. The same membranes were subsequently probed with an anti-β-actin antibody as a loading control; C: The KISS1/metastin protein expression levels are presented as the mean ± SEM. ^aP < 0.05 vs the methylated KISS1 group; D: The analysis of the relationship between KISS1 transcript expression and patient clinicopathological factors revealed a negative correlation with tumor differentiation, depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis (^aP < 0.05); E: Metastin expression was also negatively correlated with the depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis (^aP < 0.05).