title: Nuclear BAG-1 expression reflects malignant potential in colorectal carcinomas.
abstract: BAG-1 is a recently identified Bcl-2-interacting anti-apoptotic protein. The aim of our study was to investigate the immunohistochemical staining pattern of BAG-1 protein in patients with colorectal cancer and examine associations of BAG-1 expression with various clinicopathological factors and patient survival. Tumour samples were collected from 86 patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer. There was significant variation in the immunohistochemical staining patterns for BAG-1, including absent staining and staining of either the cytoplasm, nucleus or both. Twenty-one colorectal carcinomas (24.4%) exhibited a nuclear staining pattern whilst 56 (65.1%) exhibited cytoplasmic staining. The percentage of cases exhibiting nuclear BAG-1 positivity was significantly higher in distant metastasis-positive cases (55.6%) than in distant metastasis-negative cases (20.8%; P=0.036). Overall survival was significantly shorter for patients with tumours exhibiting BAG-1 positive nuclei than those with absent nuclear BAG-1-staining (P=0.011). In addition, the multivariate cox proportional hazard models indicated that nuclear BAG-1 expression was the only independent prognostic variable for mortality (P=0.013). These studies demonstrate that nuclear BAG-1 expression is a useful predictive factor for distant metastasis and a poor prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery II, Oita Medical University, 1-1 Idaigaoka, Hasama-machi, Oita 879-5593, Japan. kikuchir@oita-med.ac.jp
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Noguchi
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Takeno
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Funada
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Moriyama
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Uchida
mesh_terms: D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000032:analysis*; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000737:chemistry*; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D003593:Cytoplasm / Q000737:chemistry; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D011379:Prognosis; D014157:Transcription Factors
chemical_list: C091732:BCL2-associated athanogene 1 protein; D002352:Carrier Proteins; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D014157:Transcription Factors