The expression of and its inhibitory effect on cell biological behavior in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

BACKGROUND

is a Ras-related maternally imprinted tumor suppressor gene. Loss of expression contributes to the malignant progression of various tumors. However, reports on the clinical implications and functional role of expression in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) are limited. This study examined the role of in ESCC.

METHODS

In total, 81 patients diagnosed with ESCC based on histopathological evaluations who were subjected to surgical resection were included in the study. expression was analyzed by immunohistochemistry and western blotting, examining the correlations between expression and patient clinicopathological features. The functional effects of overexpression were examined using a Cell Counting Kit-8 assay, flow cytometry, a Transwell assay, wound healing, and western blotting in the ECA109 cell line.

RESULTS

was highly expressed in 27.5% (22/81) of ESCC specimens (adjacent noncancerous tissues, 85.2%, 69/81; <0.05). The expression level was significantly lower in patients with lymph node metastasis than in patients without (<0.05). A Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that patients with low expression had shorter survival than patients with high expression (<0.05), and a multivariate Cox analysis revealed that is an independent predictor of overall survival (=0.029). Finally, overexpression of in ESCC cells indicates that suppresses proliferative capacity, invasive capacity, and cell cycle progression and may also suppress epithelial-mesenchymal transition and induce apoptosis and autophagy.

CONCLUSION

may be a prognostic biomarker and a potential therapeutic target in ESCC.