| Summary: | Jiangtao Pu,1 Tao Zhang,1 Dengguo Zhang,1 Kaiming He,1 Yonghong Chen,2 Xingwang Sun,3 Wenbo Long3 1Thoracic Surgery Department of the First Affiliated Hospital, Southwest Medical University, Sichuan, People’s Republic of China; 2Laboratory of Affiliated Hospital of traditional Chinese medicine of Southwest Medical University, Sichuan, People’s Republic of China; 3Pathology Department of the First Affiliated Hospital, Southwest Medical University, Sichuan, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Wenbo Long Email wenbolong@swmu.edu.cnBackground and Objective: Poly (A) binding protein cytoplasmic 1 (PABPC1) plays a crucial role in the regulation of RNA polyadenylation, translation initiation, and mRNA stability and may be involved in tumorigenesis. Herein, we set out to identify the prognostic value of PABPC1 expression in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).Methods: Using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and immunohistochemical analysis, the present study investigated mRNA and protein expressions of PABPC1 in 231 ESCCs and their paired adjacent normal epithelial tissues.Results: We observed a reduction in the average mRNA expression of PABPC1 in ESCC tissue specimen, but the mRNA expression of PABPC1 was significantly higher (P< 0.001) in ESCC tissues with high PABPC1 expression and lower (P=0.033) in tissues with low PABPC1 expression. In immunohistochemical analysis, positive expression of the PABPC1 protein was identified in 179 ESCC tissue specimens (179/231, 77.5%), while the percentage of ESCC tissue specimens with high expression of PABPC1 was found to be 41.1% (95/231). PABPC1 expression was found to be significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis (LNM) (P=0.011), pathological stage (P=0.021), tumor recurrence (P< 0.001), and the outcome (P< 0.001) of patients with ESCC. High expression of PABPC1 was associated with poor overall survival (OS) of ESCC patients (P< 0.001) among all pathological stages, particularly in the early stages (pStage-I and -II), and identified to be an independent prognostic factor for OS of patients with ESCC in multivariate analysis (HR=2.622; 95% CI, 1.68– 4.129). Comparatively, the expression of Ki-67, p53, and nm23 was not associated with OS.Conclusion: In this study, we discovered that PABPC1 is a prognostic biomarker and a therapeutic target for ESCC, particularly early-stage ESCC.Keywords: esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, cytoplasmic poly (A) binding protein 1, immunohistochemical staining, overall survival, prognostic factor, hazard ratio
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