Tenascin-C serum levels and its prognostic power in non-small cell lung cancer

Prognostic implications of tenascin C in peripheral blood and primary tumours at the time of uveal melanoma diagnosis

OBJECTIVE

To examine the prognostic implication of tenascin C (TNC) in posterior uveal melanoma (UM).

DESIGN

Retrospective cohort study.

PARTICIPANTS

A total of 162 patients diagnosed with posterior UM.

METHODS

A peripheral blood sample was obtained from 82 patients at the time of UM diagnosis between 1996 and 1999. Samples were kept frozen at -80°C until the concentration of TNC was measured in 2021. Primary tumour TNC RNA sequencing data were collected from another 80 patients (The Cancer Genome Atlas cohort). Patients were separated based on median TNC values. Cumulative incidences of metastatic death (UM mortality) from competing risks data were calculated as well as Cox regression hazard ratios.

RESULTS

Patients with high and low TNC levels had tumours of similar size and American Joint Committee on Cancer stage at Bonferroni-corrected significance levels. The exception was a significantly smaller tumour diameter in patients with high serum TNC levels (p = 0.003). In competing risks analysis, patients with high serum TNC levels (≥7 ng/mL) had a higher UM mortality rate (44% vs 17% at 20 years; p = 0.008). Similarly, patients with higher primary tumour TNC RNA levels (≥1 transcripts per million) had higher UM mortality (83% vs 27% at 5 years; p = 0.003). In multivariate Cox regressions, TNC levels in peripheral blood and primary tumours were predictors of metastatic death independent of American Joint Committee on Cancer stage.

CONCLUSIONS

TNC is a prognostic biomarker in UM. At the time of primary tumour diagnosis, it is measured in higher levels in both peripheral blood and tumour tissue from patients who will eventually suffer from metastatic death.

Tissue Rigidity Increased during Carcinogenesis of NTCU-Induced Lung Squamous Cell Carcinoma In Vivo

Increased tissue rigidity is an emerging hallmark of cancer as it plays a critical role in promoting cancer growth. However, the field lacks a defined characterization of tissue rigidity in dual-stage carcinogenesis of lung squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in vivo. Pre-malignant and malignant lung SCC was developed in BALB/c mice using N-nitroso-tris-chloroethylurea (NTCU). Picro sirius red staining and atomic force microscopy were performed to measure collagen content and collagen (diameter and rigidity), respectively. Then, the expression of tenascin C (TNC) protein was determined using immunohistochemistry staining. Briefly, all tissue rigidity parameters were found to be increased in the Cancer group as compared with the Vehicle group. Importantly, collagen content (33.63 ± 2.39%) and TNC expression (7.97 ± 2.04%) were found to be significantly higher (p < 0.05) in the Malignant Cancer group, as compared with the collagen content (18.08 ± 1.75%) and TNC expression (0.45 ± 0.53%) in the Pre-malignant Cancer group, indicating increased tissue rigidity during carcinogenesis of lung SCC. Overall, tissue rigidity of lung SCC was suggested to be increased during carcinogenesis as indicated by the overexpression of collagen and TNC protein, which may warrant further research as novel therapeutic targets to treat lung SCC effectively.

Revisiting the Tenascins: Exploitable as Cancer Targets?

For their full manifestation, tumors require support from the surrounding tumor microenvironment (TME), which includes a specific extracellular matrix (ECM), vasculature, and a variety of non-malignant host cells. Together, these components form a tumor-permissive niche that significantly differs from physiological conditions. While the TME helps to promote tumor progression, its special composition also provides potential targets for anti-cancer therapy. Targeting tumor-specific ECM molecules and stromal cells or disrupting aberrant mesenchyme-cancer communications might normalize the TME and improve cancer treatment outcome. The tenascins are a family of large, multifunctional extracellular glycoproteins consisting of four members. Although each have been described to be expressed in the ECM surrounding cancer cells, tenascin-C and tenascin-W are currently the most promising candidates for exploitability and clinical use as they are highly expressed in various tumor stroma with relatively low abundance in healthy tissues. Here, we review what is known about expression of all four tenascin family members in tumors, followed by a more thorough discussion on tenascin-C and tenascin-W focusing on their oncogenic functions and their potential as diagnostic and/or targetable molecules for anti-cancer treatment purposes.

Tenascin C regulates cancer cell glycolysis and tumor progression in prostate cancer

OBJECTIVES

Tenascin C is a potential biomarker of cancer-associated fibroblasts and has been significantly associated with poor prognosis in patients with prostate cancer. However, the effects of Tenascin C in prostate cancer cell glycolysis largely remain unclear. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the Tenascin C expression in prostate cancer and its correlation to glycolysis-related protein and gene expression, clinicopathological parameters, and survival of patients.

METHODS

We performed immunohistochemical staining for Tenascin C in 141 cases of primary prostate cancer. Based on public data sets, we explored the association of Tenascin C with angiogenesis-related genes, M2 macrophage-related gene, androgen receptor levels, PI3K/AKT/NF-κB pathway genes, and glycolytic enzyme expression. The glucose uptake, lactate production, and glycolytic enzyme levels were detected by glycolysis assay and western blotting.

RESULTS

Our results showed that Tenascin C expression is upregulated in prostate cancer tissues compared with benign prostatic hyperplasia tissues. High Tenascin C expression in prostate cancer cells was positively associated with lymph node metastasis, advanced clinical stage, the expression of CD105, CD206, and androgen receptor levels. The Kaplan-Meier curves showed a significant association of Tenascin C expression with the patient's overall survival. Tenascin C expression was positively associated with PI3K p85, pAKT-ser308, and NF-κB p65 protein expression in prostate cancer samples. Moreover, siRNA-mediated knockdown of Tenascin C expression inhibited cell glucose uptake, lactate production, and glycolytic-enzyme expression in prostate cancer cells in vitro.

CONCLUSIONS

Together, our findings suggest that Tenascin C is a prognostic marker for patients with prostate cancer and that its effects might be mediated via regulation of the glycolysis process of prostate cancer cells.

The usefulness of biomarkers in diagnosis of asbestos-induced malignant pleural mesothelioma

INTRODUCTION

Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a malignant tumor that is associated mostly with asbestos exposure. The present study was to evaluates the diagnostic value of neopterin, periostin, YKL-40, Tenascin-C (TNC), and Indolamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) as noninvasive markers of malign pleural mesothelioma.

METHODS

Included in the study were 30 patients diagnosed with malign pleural mesothelioma, and 25 people as a control group. Biomarker levels were determined using an enzyme immunoassay . A Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman correlation methods were used for the statistical analysis.

RESULTS

All evaluated biomarkers were found to be significantly higher in the MPM group than in the control group (p < 0.05). There was no effect of such variables as gender, age or MPMsubtype on the parameters (p > 0.05) in the patient group. All biomarkers were positively correlated with each other (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

The current non-invasive biomarkers that can be used in the diagnosis of MPM yielded significant results and can make important contributions to the early diagnosis of MPM.

Identification of potential crucial genes associated with the pathogenesis and prognosis of prostate cancer

Aim: Prostate cancer (PCa) is the sixth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men throughout the world. This study aimed to investigate genes associated with the pathogenesis and prognosis of PCa. Materials & methods: Data of PCa cases were obtained from public datasets and were analyzed using an integrated bioinformatics strategy. Results: A total of 969 differential expression genes were identified. Moreover, GSE16560 and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data showed a prognostic prompt function of the nine-gene signature, as well as in PCa with Gleason 7. Finally, majority of the nine hub genes were associated with drug sensitivity, mutational landscape, immune infiltrates and clinical characteristics of PCa. Conclusion: The nine-gene signature was correlated with drug sensitivity, mutational landscape, immune infiltrates, clinical characteristics and survival from PCa.

Multi-omic serum biomarkers for prognosis of disease progression in prostate cancer

Background

Predicting the clinical course of prostate cancer is challenging due to the wide biological spectrum of the disease. The objective of our study was to identify prostate cancer prognostic markers in patients ‘sera using a multi-omics discovery platform.

Methods

Pre-surgical serum samples collected from a longitudinal, racially diverse, prostate cancer patient cohort (N = 382) were examined. Linear Regression and Bayesian computational approaches integrated with multi-omics, were used to select markers to predict biochemical recurrence (BCR). BCR-free survival was modeled using unadjusted Kaplan–Meier estimation curves and multivariable Cox proportional hazards analysis, adjusted for key pathologic variables. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve statistics were used to examine the predictive value of markers in discriminating BCR events from non-events. The findings were further validated by creating a training set (N = 267) and testing set (N = 115) from the cohort.

Results

Among 382 patients, 72 (19%) experienced a BCR event in a median follow-up time of 6.9 years. Two proteins—Tenascin C (TNC) and Apolipoprotein A1V (Apo-AIV), one metabolite—1-Methyladenosine (1-MA) and one phospholipid molecular species phosphatidic acid (PA) 18:0-22:0 showed a cumulative predictive performance of AUC = 0.78 [OR (95% CI) = 6.56 (2.98–14.40), P < 0.05], in differentiating patients with and without BCR event. In the validation set all four metabolites consistently reproduced an equivalent performance with high negative predictive value (NPV; > 80%) for BCR. The combination of pTstage and Gleason score with the analytes, further increased the sensitivity [AUC = 0.89, 95% (CI) = 4.45–32.05, P < 0.05], with an increased NPV (0.96) and OR (12.4) for BCR. The panel of markers combined with the pathological parameters demonstrated a more accurate prediction of BCR than the pathological parameters alone in prostate cancer.

Conclusions

In this study, a panel of serum analytes were identified that complemented pathologic patient features in predicting prostate cancer progression. This panel offers a new opportunity to complement current prognostic markers and to monitor the potential impact of primary treatment versus surveillance on patient oncological outcome.

Prognostic Role of Tenascin-C for Cancer Outcome: A Meta-Analysis

Background:

The prognostic value of tenascin-C in different types of cancers remains controversial. To clarify its prognostic value on overall survival rates, we have conducted a meta-analysis to quantitatively assess the prognostic roles of tenascin-C for patients with cancer.

Methods:

We systematically searched all published studies about the role of tenascin-C in cancers on PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Embase. The pooled hazard ratio with 95% confidence intervals was used to analyze the association between tenascin-C expression level and overall survival of patients with cancer. The pooled odds ratio with 95% confidence intervals was used to investigate the association between tenascin-C expression level and clinicopathologic features of patients with cancer. Trial sequential analysis was performed to obtain the required information size.

Results:

In this meta-analysis, 18 studies including 2732 patients were incorporated. The pooled hazard ratio of 18 trials was 1.73 (95% confidence interval: 1.29-2.32, P < .001) for overall survival, suggesting that elevated tenascin-C expression strongly predicted poor prognosis among patients with various cancers. Simultaneously, elevated tenascin-C expression was also significantly associated with lymph node metastasis (odds ratio = 2.42, 95% confidence interval: 1.79-3.26, P < .001). However, no significant correlation was observed between the tenascin-C expression and distant metastasis (odds ratio = 1.72, 95% confidence interval: 0.86-3.44, P = .127).

Conclusions:

Tenascin-C is considered as a promising unfavorable prognostic factor in human cancers. Likewise, tenascin-C can be used as a monitoring indicator for poor prognosis in a wide range of cancers.

Genomic alterations of Tenascin C in highly aggressive prostate cancer: a meta-analysis

Tenascin C (TNC), an extra-cellular matrix (ECM) family gene, is expressed in several cancer tissues of breast, lung, colon, and gastrointestinal tract leading to proliferation, migration, invasion, angiogenesis and metastasis, but its role in tumorigenesis of prostate cancer is poorly understood. We took a meta-analysis approach to characterize the alterations of TNC gene in prostate cancer using publicly available databases (cBioportal Version 2.2.0, http://www.cBioportal.org/index.do). The analysis identified TNC alterations (gene amplification) significantly in the neuroendocrine prostate cancer dataset (Trento/Broad/Cornell, N = 114), which was further validated in other prostate cancer datasets, including The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) prostate cancer (2015). In the TCGA prostate cancer dataset (N = 498), high TNC (alteration frequency, 36%) revealed a strong association with high diagnostic Gleason score. Genomic alterations of TNC was also significantly associated (P < 0.05) with expression level of genes from NOTCH, SOX and WNT family, implicating a link between TNC and poorly differentiated aggressive phenotype in NEPC. TCGA prostate adenocarcinoma cases with TNC alteration also demonstrated prominent decrease in disease-free survival (P = 0.0637). These findings indicate a possible association of TNC to the aggressive subtype of prostate cancer and warrant further functional studies to evident the involvement of TNC in prostate cancer progression.

Long non-coding RNAs RP5-821D11.7, APCDD1L-AS1 and RP11-277P12.9 were associated with the prognosis of lung squamous cell carcinoma

Lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC), a type of non-small cell lung carcinoma, has a poor therapeutic response, high relapse rate and poor prognosis. The present study was designed to reveal the key long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) associated with the prognosis of LUSC. The lncRNA expression profiles of LUSC and adjacent samples were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. Based on the edgeR and DEseq packages, the differentially expressed lncRNAs (DELs) between LUSC and adjacent samples were obtained and the intersecting DELs were regarded as significant DELs. Subsequently, a prognostic risk model was established using Cox regression analysis and its classification effect was detected by survival analysis. Using survival analysis, the effect of the prognostic risk model was assessed in the validation set and other types of cancer. Finally, the co-expression genes of key lncRNAs were screened using the Multi-Experiment Matrix tool and the STRING database, and their functions were predicted via enrichment analysis using the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery tool. A total of 2,041 significant DELs between LUSC and adjacent samples were screened. The prognostic risk model consisting of RP5-821D11.7, APCDD1L-AS1 and RP11-277P12.9 was established, which had a good classification effect. Cox multivariate regression analysis demonstrated that risk score may serve as an independent prognostic factor. Furthermore, certain co-expression genes of RP5-821D11.7 (including proliferating cell nuclear antigen), APCDD1L-AS1 (including semaphorin 5A, semaphorin 6D, ADAMTS like 1, ADAM metallopeptidase with thrombospondin type 1 motif 6, slit guidance ligand 3, and tenascin C) and RP11-277P12.9 (including Wnt family member 2B) were identified. Additionally, ‘positive regulation of cell migration’ and ‘proteinaceous extracellular matrix’ were enriched. In conclusion, the expression levels of the lncRNAs RP5-821D11.7, APCDD1L-AS1 and RP11-277P12.9 may affect the prognosis of LUSC.

High serum haptoglobin level is associated with tumor progression and predicts poor prognosis in non-small cell lung cancer

The overall survival time of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has not improved dramatically in recent decades. An important reason is the lacking of valuable biomarkers. Haptoglobin was reported to have activities of anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, autoimmune and tumor angiogenesis. However its potential role as a tumor biomarker was not well recognized. We used an immunoturbidimetry method to measure serum haptoglobin levels in 205 NSCLC patients, and 210 normal healthy controls. We found that serum haptoglobin levels were significantly elevated in NSCLC patients compared with normal healthy controls (1.985±1.039 mg/mLvs. 0.922 ± 0.495 mg/mL, respectively, P < 0.0001). Higher serum haptoglobin levels were associated with advanced TNM stage, lymph node metastasis, and distant metastasis. Area under receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) for serum haptoglobin was 0.809 (95% CI: 0.767–0.852) at a specificity of 0.881 and sensitivity of 0.639. The optimal cut-off value of haptoglobin was 1.495 mg/mL for discriminating NSCLC from normal healthy controls. Kaplan-Meier log rank analysis revealed that the higher serum haptoglobin levels group had a poorer overall survival compared with lower haptoglobin group (the median survival was 12.0 weeks, 26.0 weeks, respectively, P < 0.01). Further univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that serum haptoglobin was an independent risk factor of prognosis of NSCLC patients (P < 0.01, P = 0.01, respectively). In conclusion, our study suggests that serum haptoglobin may act as useful clinical serological biomarkers in progression and prognostic evaluation in NSCLC.

Spatiotemporal expression of endogenous TLR4 ligands leads to inflammation and bone erosion in mouse collagen-induced arthritis

Increased expression of endogenous Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) ligands (e.g., Tenascin-C, S100A8/A9, citrullinated fibrinogen (cFb) immune complexes) has been observed in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, their roles in RA pathogenesis are not well understood. Here, we investigated the expression kinetics and role of endogenous TLR4 ligands in the murine model of collagen-induced arthritis (CIA). Tenascin-C was upregulated in blood early in CIA, and correlated positively with the clinical score at day 56. Levels of S100A8/A9 increased starting from day 28, peaking at day 42, and correlated positively with joint inflammation. Levels of anti-cFb antibodies increased during the late phase of CIA and correlated positively with both joint inflammation and cartilage damage. Blockade of TLR4 activation at the time of the first TLR4 ligand upregulation prevented clinical and histological signs of arthritis. A TLR4-dependent role was also observed for Tenascin-C and cFb immune complexes in osteoclast differentiation in vitro. Taken together, our data suggests that the pathogenic contribution of TLR4 in promoting joint inflammation and bone erosion during CIA occurs via various TLR4 ligands arising at different stages of disease. The data also suggests that Blockade of TLR4 with monoclonal antibodies is a promising strategy in RA treatment.