Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, School of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.
Department of Biochemistry, Neyshabur Branch, Islamic Azad University, Neyshabur, Iran.
Asian Pac J Cancer Prev. 2022 May 1;23(5):1725-1731. doi: 10.31557/APJCP.2022.23.5.1725.
Despite the tremendous efforts in finding a valuable markers for risk stratifying gastric cancer (GC) patients; still, management of this cancer faces multiple obstacles. Given this, we designed a study to explore the possible relationship between the tripartite motif-containing 44 (TRIM44) gene expression, and the outcome of the GC patients.
The real-time quantitative PCR method was used to evaluate the mRNA expression level of TRIM44, and β-catenin in fresh primary tumor and adjacent normal tissues collected from 40 GC patients. The Pearson's correlation test, Kaplan-Meier method, and Cox proportional-hazards regression were performed to examine the association of TRIM44 expression with some clinicopathological data and the patients' overall survival (OS).
The expression level of both TRIM44 and β-catenin was remarkably higher in GC tissues than in normal tissues (Fold change=1.71, p=0.004). In subgroup analysis based on the TRIM44 expression, pateints with high TRIM44 expression level exhibited poorer overall survival (HR = 1.46, 95% CI: 1.07-1.98, p=0.016). More strikingly, a positive correlation was also found between the expression of TRIM44 and β-catenin in GC, indicating that TRIM44 might exert its oncogenic activities probably through the β-catenin axis.
This study highlighted the potent value of TRIM44 as an independent prognostic factor in gastric cancer and shed light on the probable interplay between this tripartite motif-containing protein and β-catenin. However, further investigations, especially with a larger sample size, are required to study the effect of TRIM44 in GC more precisely.
尽管在寻找有价值的胃癌（GC）患者风险分层标志物方面付出了巨大努力，但这种癌症的治疗仍然面临诸多障碍。有鉴于此，我们设计了一项研究，旨在探索三肽基含 44 （TRIM44）基因表达与 GC 患者预后之间的可能关系。
采用实时定量 PCR 方法检测 40 例 GC 患者新鲜原发肿瘤及相邻正常组织中 TRIM44 和 β-catenin 的 mRNA 表达水平。采用 Pearson 相关检验、Kaplan-Meier 法和 Cox 比例风险回归分析 TRIM44 表达与部分临床病理数据及患者总生存期（OS）的关系。
GC 组织中 TRIM44 和 β-catenin 的表达水平均明显高于正常组织（Fold change=1.71，p=0.004）。基于 TRIM44 表达的亚组分析显示，高 TRIM44 表达水平的患者总生存期较差（HR=1.46，95%CI：1.07-1.98，p=0.016）。更引人注目的是，GC 中 TRIM44 表达与 β-catenin 之间存在正相关，表明 TRIM44 可能通过 β-catenin 轴发挥其致癌活性。
本研究强调了 TRIM44 作为独立预后因素在胃癌中的潜在价值，并揭示了这种三肽基含蛋白与 β-catenin 之间可能的相互作用。然而，需要进一步的研究，特别是更大的样本量，以更精确地研究 TRIM44 在 GC 中的作用。
