Protein expression of Fragile Histidine Triad and cyclooxgenase-2 in serrated neoplasia of the colorectum

Effect of interventional embolotherapy on FHIT and p16 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Effects of interventional embolotherapy on the expression of fragile histidine triad (FHIT) and p16 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients were investigated. Patients with primary HCC who were definitely diagnosed and treated in the Department of Gastroenterology in Qingdao Central Hospital from March 2014 to March 2016 were selected, and they underwent interventional embolotherapy. HCC and cancer-adjacent tissues of the patients were harvested for immunohistochemical staining. The correlation between the expression levels of FHIT and p16 was analyzed at the gene and protein level. Clinical data were collected, and whether they were correlated with the expression of FHIT and p16 was investigated. The expression levels of FHIT and p16 in primary HCC tissues were remarkably lower than that in cancer-adjacent tissues (P<0.05). In HCC tissues, FHIT expression was obviously positively correlated with p16 expression (Spearman's correlation coefficient, r=0.308; P=0.025). FHIT was related to HCC tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging, the differentiation degree in Edmondson-Steiner grading, lymph node metastasis and portal vein thrombosis (P<0.05 in all comparisons), whereas, p16 was associated with tumor size and the differentiation degree in Edmondson-Steiner grading (P<0.05 in all comparisons). The expression of FHIT and p16 genes and proteins in HCC tissues were obviously lower than those in cancer-adjacent tissues (P<0.05 in all comparisons). FHIT and p16 genes, as tumor suppressor genes, inhibit the proliferation of HCC, and there is a positive correlation between them. The proteins of the FHIT and p16 can be used as new indicators for clinical detection, thus providing a new method for clinical diagnosis.

Expression of doublecortin and CaM kinase-like-1 protein in serrated neoplasia of the colorectum

The adenoma-carcinoma sequence (ACS) and the serrated pathway are two distinct developmental routes leading to the formation of colorectal carcinoma. Recently, the doublecortin and CaM kinase-like-1 protein (DCLK1) has been reported to serve as an intestinal cancer stem cell marker and has been demonstrated to be overexpressed through the ACS; however, there is a lack of reports on the role of DCLK1 in the serrated pathway. To clarify the correlation between DCLK1 protein expression and clinicopathological characteristics of the serrated tumorigenic pathway, the present study used immunohistochemistry to examine the expression of DCLK1 in endoscopically resected samples of 62 serrated polyps [20 hyperplastic polyps (HPs), 16 traditional serrated adenomas (TSAs) and 26 sessile serrated adenoma-polyps (SSA/Ps)], as well as 20 non-serrated adenomas, 20 carcinoma in adenomas (CIAs) and 18 early pure colorectal carcinomas without any adenoma component (EPCs). Based on immunostaining score, high DCLK1 expression was detected in 20.0% of HPs (23.1% of microvesicular HPs and 14.3% of goblet cell HPs), 37.5% of TSAs, 7.7% of SSA/Ps, 80.0% of non-serrated adenomas, 75.0% of CIAs and 50.0% of EPCs. Negative or low DCLK1 expression was frequently observed in TSAs (P<0.005), SSA/Ps (P<0.00001) and EPCs (P<0.04) compared with non-serrated adenomas and CIAs. In addition, negative or low DCLK1 expression was significantly more frequent in SSA/Ps (92.3%) compared with TSAs (62.5%; P<0.05). Thus, the expression pattern of DCLK1 between the serrated pathway and ACS differed, indicating that DCLK1 expression may perform a secondary role in serrated tumorigenesis. In addition, the data indicates that EPCs may contain tumors derived from the serrated pathway as well as the ACS.