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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Feb 28, 2017; 23(8): 1450-1457
Published online Feb 28, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i8.1450
Clinicopathological and prognostic significance of aberrant Arpin expression in gastric cancer
Tao Li, Hong-Mei Zheng, Nai-Mei Deng, Ying-Jian Jiang, Jiang Wang, Dian-Liang Zhang
Tao Li, Hong-Mei Zheng, Ying-Jian Jiang, Jiang Wang, Dian-Liang Zhang, Center of Colon and Rectum, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266011, Shandong Province, China
Nai-Mei Deng, Infection Department, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, Qingdao 266011, Shandong Province, China
Author contributions: Zhang DL designed the research; Li T and Wang J performed the research; Zheng HM, Deng NM and Jiang YJ contributed new reagents and analytic tools; Li T analyzed the data and wrote the paper.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dian-Liang Zhang, MD, PhD, Center of Colon and Rectum, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, Qingdao University, No. 1 Jiaozhou Road, Qingdao 266011, Shangdong Province, China. phdzdl@yahoo.com
Telephone: +86-532-82852057 Fax: +86-532-82852058
Received: October 1, 2016
Peer-review started: October 5, 2016
First decision: October 20, 2016
Revised: November 20, 2016
Accepted: January 11, 2017
Article in press: January 11, 2017
Published online: February 28, 2017
Processing time: 148 Days and 3.8 Hours
Abstract
AIM

To detect the expression of Arpin, and determine its correlation with clinicopathological characteristics and the prognosis of gastric cancer (GC) patients.

METHODS

A total of 176 GC patients were enrolled as study subjects and classified into groups according to different clinicopathological variables. GC mucosal tissues were obtained via surgery. Another 43 paraffin-embedded tissue blocks of normal gastric epithelium (> 5 cm away from the edge of the tumor) were included in the control group. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) for the Arpin and Arp3 proteins was performed on the formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded GC tissues. Additionally, expression of the Arpin protein in 43 normal gastric tissues was also determined using IHC.

RESULTS

Expression of the Arpin protein in GC was lower than that in normal gastric mucosa (30.68% vs 60.47%, P < 0.001). A χ2 test of the 176 GC samples used for IHC showed that decreased Arpin expression was associated with advanced TNM stage (P < 0.01) and the presence or absence of lymph node metastasis (80.92% vs 35.56%, P < 0.001). Additionally, a significant correlation was observed between the expression of Arpin and the presence of the Arp2/3 complex in GC tissues (χ2 = 30.535, P < 0.001). Moreover, a multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that Arpin expression [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.551, P = 0.029] and TNM stage (HR = 5.344, P = 0.001) were independent prognostic markers for overall survival of GC patients. Regarding the 3-year disease-free survival (DFS), the recurrence rate of GC patients with low Arpin expression levels (median DFS 19 mo) was higher than that in the high-Arpin-expression group (median DFS 34 mo, P = 0.022).

CONCLUSION

Low Arpin levels are associated with clinicopathological variables and a poor prognosis in GC patients. Arpin may be regarded as a potential prognostic indicator in GC.

Keywords: Clinicopathological characteristics; Gastric cancer; Arpin; Arp2/3 complex; Prognosis

Core tip: Arpin, a newly found Arp2/3 complex inhibitor reported in Nature, in 2013, was shown to restrict the rate of actin polymerization and control cell migration. However, little is known about whether the expression of Arpin is altered in gastric cancer (GC) tissues, and the detailed mechanisms for invasion and metastasis of GC remain unknown. Our research shows that expression level of Arpin is low in GC, and decreased Arpin expression is associated with the characteristics of clinical pathology and poor prognosis of GC patients. It may be regarded as a potential prognosis indicator for clinical outcomes in GC.