Elevated HABP1 protein expression correlates with progression and poor survival in patients with gastric cancer.

BACKGROUND

Hyaluronic acid-binding protein 1 (HABP1/gC1qR/p32) has been recently implicated in oncogenesis and cancer progression in various malignancies; however, its clinical role in gastric cancer (GC) is still unclear.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

First, HABP1 expression was determined by Western blot analysis and immunohistochemistry. Then, we evaluated the expression of HABP1 and its clinical significance in tumor tissues from 181 patients with GC.

RESULTS

Expression of HABP1 protein in GC tissues was noticeably higher than that in adjacent nonneoplastic tissues (=0.018). Increased HABP1 expression was significantly associated with tumor, node, and metastasis (TNM) stage (=0.006), depth of invasion (=0.001), lymph node metastasis (=0.001), liver metastasis (=0.024), and peritoneum metastasis (=0.009). Patients with high expression of HABP1 had poor overall survival rate (<0.001). In addition, histologic grade (=0.017), TNM stage (<0.001), Borrmann grouping (<0.001), depth of invasion (<0.001), lymph node metastasis (<0.001), liver metastasis (=0.010), and tumor size (<0.001) were independent prognostic factors for overall survival. Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that HABP1 (=0.004), histologic grade (=0.047), TNM stage (<0.001), Borrmann grouping (<0.001), and liver metastasis (=0.038) were independent factors for overall survival in patients with GC.

CONCLUSION

These findings demonstrated that HABP1 was an indicator for GC progression and poor survival, which highlighted its potential role as a therapeutic target for GCs.