Ngan C Y, Yamamoto H, Seshimo I, Tsujino T, Man-i M, Ikeda J-I, Konishi K, Takemasa I, Ikeda M, Sekimoto M, Matsuura N, Monden M
Department of Surgery, Gastroenterological Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
Br J Cancer. 2007 Mar 26;96(6):986-92. doi: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6603651. Epub 2007 Feb 27.
Recent studies have identified vimentin, a type III intermediate filament, among genes differentially expressed in tumours with more invasive features, suggesting an association between vimentin and tumour progression. The aim of this study, was to investigate whether vimentin expression in colon cancer tissue is of clinical relevance. We performed immunostaining in 142 colorectal cancer (CRC) samples and quantified the amount of vimentin expression using computer-assisted image analysis. Vimentin expression in the tumour stroma of CRC was associated with shorter survival. Overall survival in the high vimentin expression group was 71.2% compared with 90.4% in the low-expression group (P=0.002), whereas disease-free survival for the high-expression group was 62.7% compared with 86.7% for the low-expression group (P=0.001). Furthermore, the prognostic power of vimentin for disease recurrence was maintained in both stage II and III CRC. Multivariate analysis suggested that vimentin was a better prognostic indicator for disease recurrence (risk ratio=3.5) than the widely used lymph node status (risk ratio=2.2). Vimentin expression in the tumour stroma may reflect a higher malignant potential of the tumour and may be a useful predictive marker for disease recurrence in CRC patients.
最近的研究已在具有更强侵袭性特征的肿瘤中差异表达的基因中鉴定出波形蛋白（一种III型中间丝），这表明波形蛋白与肿瘤进展之间存在关联。本研究的目的是调查结肠癌组织中波形蛋白的表达是否具有临床相关性。我们对142例结直肠癌（CRC）样本进行了免疫染色，并使用计算机辅助图像分析对波形蛋白的表达量进行了量化。CRC肿瘤基质中的波形蛋白表达与较短的生存期相关。波形蛋白高表达组的总生存率为71.2%，而低表达组为90.4%（P = 0.002），而高表达组的无病生存率为62.7%，低表达组为86.7%（P = 0.001）。此外，波形蛋白对疾病复发的预后价值在II期和III期CRC中均得以保持。多变量分析表明，与广泛使用的淋巴结状态（风险比=2.2）相比，波形蛋白是疾病复发更好的预后指标（风险比=3.5）。肿瘤基质中的波形蛋白表达可能反映了肿瘤更高的恶性潜能，并且可能是CRC患者疾病复发的有用预测标志物。
