Gao Shuhang, Sun Yan, Liu Xue, Zhang Dandan, Yang Xuesong
Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, Liaoning 116044, P.R. China.
Department of Nephrology, Hematology and Rheumatology, Yantai Affiliated Hospital, Binzhou Medical College, Yantai, Shandong 264000, P.R. China.
Mol Med Rep. 2017 Jun;15(6):3755-3760. doi: 10.3892/mmr.2017.6447. Epub 2017 Apr 7.
Upregulation of the epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) is involved in tumor progression. Cyclooxygenase (COX)‑2 is the key enzyme catalyzing prostaglandin synthesis and is involved in breast cancer progression and metastasis. However, the prognostic value of EpCAM and its putative correlation with COX‑2 in breast cancer have yet to be elucidated. The aim of the present study was to assess the clinical relevance of the relationship between EpCAM and COX‑2, via examining the putative correlation between EpCAM and COX‑2 expression in various types of human breast cancer. A total of 134 breast cancer tissue samples was examined in the present study. Immunohistochemistry approach was used to detect EpCAM and COX‑2 expression in the tissue microarrays. Spearman's correlation analysis was performed to evaluate the correlation between the protein expression and clinicopathological parameters present in patients with various tumor subtypes, with the aim to potentially establish a relationship between EpCAM/COX‑2 and clinical prognosis. Expression of EpCAM and COX‑2 was revealed to be associated with tumor progression, and poor prognosis in breast cancer. The present findings demonstrated that EpCAM was involved in the regulation of COX‑2 expression, and a positive correlation between the proteins was associated with poor prognosis in patients with breast cancer. The present results suggest that EpCAM and COX‑2 may have potential as prognostic biomarkers in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with breast cancer.
上皮细胞粘附分子（EpCAM）的上调与肿瘤进展有关。环氧化酶（COX）-2是催化前列腺素合成的关键酶，参与乳腺癌的进展和转移。然而，EpCAM的预后价值及其与乳腺癌中COX-2的潜在相关性尚未阐明。本研究的目的是通过检测不同类型人类乳腺癌中EpCAM与COX-2表达之间的潜在相关性，评估EpCAM与COX-2关系的临床相关性。本研究共检测了134例乳腺癌组织样本。采用免疫组织化学方法检测组织芯片中EpCAM和COX-2的表达。进行Spearman相关性分析，以评估不同肿瘤亚型患者蛋白质表达与临床病理参数之间的相关性，旨在潜在地建立EpCAM/COX-2与临床预后之间的关系。结果显示，EpCAM和COX-2的表达与肿瘤进展及乳腺癌患者的不良预后相关。本研究结果表明，EpCAM参与了COX-2表达的调节，且这两种蛋白质之间的正相关与乳腺癌患者的不良预后相关。本研究结果提示，EpCAM和COX-2在乳腺癌患者的诊断和治疗中可能具有作为预后生物标志物的潜力。
