Expression of resistin-like molecule beta in gastric cancer: its relationship with clinicopathological parameters and prognosis.

Liduan Zheng; Mixia Weng; Jun He; Xiuping Yang; Guosong Jiang; Qiangsong Tong

Abstract  Resistin-like molecule beta (RELMβ), an intestinal goblet cell-specific protein, is a biomarker of intestinal metaplasia in Barrett’s esophagus and over-expressed in colon cancer. Since gastric adenocarcinomas can arise through a process of intestinalization, we hypothesized that RELMβ might be aberrantly expressed in gastric cancer. This study was undertaken to examine the RELMβ expression in gastric cancer and correlate it with clinical outcome. One hundred and thirty-six gastric cancer patients were evaluated for the RELMβ expression by immunohistochemistry. The RELMβ transcripts were measured by real-time quantitative PCR. In normal gastric mucosa, RELMβ expression was absent, whereas areas of intestinal metaplasia revealed RELMβ reactivity. Eighty-nine patients of gastric cancer (65.4%) were positive for RELMβ expression. In a subtotal of 20 patients, RELMβ transcripts were positively correlated with protein levels in gastric cancer tissues, but absent in normal gastric mucosa. The expression rate of RELMβ was higher in intestinal-type carcinomas than in diffuse-type carcinomas (P P = 0.001) and inversely correlated with tumor infiltration (P = 0.007), lymph node metastasis (P = 0.035), and heparanase expression (P P = 0.001). These results provide evidences that the RELMβ expression in gastric cancer is correlated with clinicopathological features and may be a useful prognostic factor for predicting the outcome of gastric cancer patients.

PROTEINS; MOLECULES; CANCER prognosis; CANCER diagnosis; STOMACH cancer; BIOMARKERS; METAPLASIA; COLON cancer

Virchows Archiv: European Journal of Pathology, 2010, Vol 456, Issue 1, p53

0945-6317

Academic Journal

10.1007/s00428-009-0861-4