Expression and significance of Cyr61 in distant metastasis cells of human primary salivary adenoid cystic carcinoma

Evaluation of extracellular matrix protein CCN1 as a prognostic factor for glioblastoma

Recently, research efforts in identifying prognostic molecular biomarkers for malignant glioma have intensified. Cysteine-rich protein 61 (CCN1) is one of the CCN family of matricellular proteins that promotes cell growth and angiogenesis in cancers through its interaction with several integrins. In this study, we investigated the relationships among CCN1, O(6)-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase expression, the tumor removal rate, and prognosis in 46 glioblastoma patients treated at the Okayama University Hospital. CCN1 expression was high in 31 (67 %) of these patients. The median progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) times of patients with high CCN1 expression was significantly shorter than those of patients with low CCN1 expression (p < 0.005). In a multivariate Cox analysis, CCN1 proved to be an independent prognostic factor for patient survival [PFS, hazard ratio (HR) = 3.53 (1.55-8.01), p = 0.003 and OS, HR = 3.05 (1.35-6.87), p = 0.007]. Moreover, in the 31 patients who underwent gross total resection, the PFS and OS times of those with high CCN1 expression were significantly shorter than those with low CCN1 expression. It was concluded that CCN1 might emerge as a significant prognostic factor regarding the prognosis of glioblastoma patients.

Expression of TMPRSS4 in patients with salivary adenoid cystic carcinoma: correlation with clinicopathological features and prognosis

Although there is growing evidence supporting the hypothesis that TMPRSS4 is linked with cancer susceptibility, the precise role of TMPRSS4 expression in salivary adenoid cystic carcinoma (SACC) is still unknown. The aim of this study was to examine TMPRSS4 expression in SACC and determine its associations with clinicopathological features and survival. TMPRSS4 expression in 125 SACC tissue and adjacent non-cancerous tissues was analyzed by immunohistochemistry and Western blotting. In addition, the correlation of TMPRSS4 expression with clinicopathological variables was evaluated. The prognostic value of TMPRSS4 for overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) was determined by Kaplan-Meier estimates, and the significance of differences between curves was evaluated by the log-rank test. We found that high TMPRSS4 expression was predominantly observed in SACC tissues, but not in the adjacent normal salivary gland tissues. High TMPRSS4 expression in SACC tissues was correlated significantly with tumor TNM stage (P = 0.016), lymph node metastasis (P = 0.002) and distant metastasis (P < 0.001). While high TMPRSS4 expression was associated with poor OS (P = 0.019) and DFS (P = 0.031), Cox regression analysis also revealed that TMPRSS4 was an independent predictor of OS and DFS. These findings suggested that TMPRSS4 was involved in the pathogenesis of SACC and might indicate a poor prognosis for SACC patients.