SPOCK1 Overexpression Confers a Poor Prognosis in Urothelial Carcinoma

PUPROSE - The majority deaths of cancer patients are related to metastasis, thus genes associated with cell motility interest us. SPOCK1 was elected by data mining and serial evaluation. In addition, SPOCK1 has been reported to be highly expressed in different human cancers and been related to adverse outcomes.

Therefore, we validate its prognostic significance in urothelial carcinoma (UC).

MATERIALS AND METHODS - Real-time RT-PCR assay was used to detect SPOCK1 transcript level in 27 urinary tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) and 27 urinary bladder urothelial carcinoma (UBUC) samples. Immunohistochemistry evaluated by H-score determined SPOCK1 expressions in 340 UTUCs and 295 UBUCs. The transcript and protein expression were correlated with clinicopathological features. Further evaluations of the prognostic significance of SPOCK1 for disease-specific survival (DSS) and metastasis-free survival (MeFS) were analyzed.

RESULTS - The expressions of SPOCK1 in UC were higher than those in normal urothelium by immunohistochemistry. The statistical analysis of clinicopathologic characteristics and immunohistochemistry showed that the higher expression of SPOCK1 was correlated to pT status (P<0.001), lymph node metastasis (UTUC, P=0.006; UBUC, P=0.033), higher histological grade (UTUC, P<0.001; UBUC, P<0.001), vascular invasion (UTUC, P<0.001; UBUC, P<0.001), perineurial invasion (UTUC, P<0.001; UBUC, P=0.001) and frequent mitosis (UTUC, P<0.001; UBUC, P=0.001). The prognosis of SPOCK1 of UC showed high SPOCK1 expression had significantly worse DSS and MeFS.

CONCLUSIONS - The investigation demonstrated that the higher expression of SPOCK1 correlates with a poor prognosis in UC.

Journal of Cancer. 2016 Jan 29*** epublish ***

Li-Jung Ma, Wen-Jen Wu, Yu-Hui Wang, Ting-Feng Wu, Peir-In Liang, I-Wei Chang, Hong-Lin He, Chien-Feng Li

1. Department of Pathology, Chi-Mei Medical Center, Tainan, Taiwan;, 2. Graduate Institute of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan;; 3. Department of Urology, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan;; 4. Department of Urology, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan;; 5. Department of Urology, Kaohsiung Municipal Hsiao-Kang Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan;; 6. Center for Stem Cell Research, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan;, 7. Institute of Bioinformatics and Biosignal Transduction, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan;, 8. Departments of Biotechnology, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Tainan, Taiwan;, 9. Department of Pathology, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan;, 10. Department of Pathology, E-DA Hospital, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan;, 10. Department of Pathology, E-DA Hospital, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan;, 1. Department of Pathology, Chi-Mei Medical Center, Tainan, Taiwan;; 8. Departments of Biotechnology, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Tainan, Taiwan;; 11. National Cancer Research Institute, National Health Research Institutes, Tainan, Taiwan;; 12. Department of Biotechnology, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Tainan, Taiwan;; 13. Institute of Clinical Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University & Department of Internal Medicine and Cancer Center, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.