Overexpression of FAM3C protein as a novel biomarker for epithelial-mesenchymal transition and poor outcome in gastric cancer.

OBJECTIVE

In recent years, overexpression of FAM3C protein has been proved to contribute to epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and correlate with poor prognosis in several malignant tumors. However, the role of FAM3C in gastric cancer (GC) is still not clear. Thus, we detected the expression of FAM3C by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and determined the association of FAM3C expression with EMT, clinicopathologic characteristics, and prognosis in GC.

METHODS

We detected the expression of FAM3C, PDGFR-β, E-cadherin, and vimentin in 150 patients with GC by tissue chip technology and IHC methods. All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS 22.0 software.

RESULTS

FAM3C expression in gastric carcinoma tissues was significantly higher than in matched adjacent normal tissues (P = 0.037). The expression of FAM3C positively correlated with vimentin expression and negatively correlated with E-cadherin expression (P = 0.045 and 0.029, respectively). However, there was no correlation between expression of FAM3C and PDGFR-β (P = 0.095). FAM3C overexpression was significantly associated with depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis and TNM stage (P = 0.004, 0.016 and 0.022, respectively). Multivariate analysis revealed that high expression of FAM3C is an independent prognostic factor for poor prognosis in GC patients (P = 0.007).

CONCLUSIONS

Overexpression of FAM3C is a potential marker for EMT and predicts poor outcome in gastric cancer.