Clinicopathological significance of Nup88 expression in patients with colorectal cancer.
OBJECTIVE
The nucleoporin Nup88 is overexpressed in a series of human malignancies, however, its clinicopathological significance has not been studied. Our aims were to analyze Nup88 expression in normal mucosa, primary tumors and metastases from colorectal cancer patients and further to identify relationships of Nup88 expression with clinicopathological and other factors.


METHODS
Using immunohistochemistry, we investigated Nup88 expression in 198 primary colorectal tumors, 96 normal mucosa samples and 35 lymph node metastases.


RESULTS
The results showed that the intensity of Nup88 expression increased from the normal mucosa to the primary tumors (p < 0.0001) and tended to increase from the primary tumors to the metastases (p = 0.15). Both primary tumors and metastases presented stronger expression in the invasive margin and vascular-invaded areas. Nup88 expression was positively related to distal tumor location (p = 0.01), infiltrative growth pattern (p = 0.04) and higher proliferative activity (p = 0.04) and reversely to the grade of differentiation (p = 0.02) and apoptosis (p = 0.049). Strong expression of Nup88 predicted a worse outcome in the patients with distal tumors during the follow-up period of up to 3 years (p = 0.02).


CONCLUSIONS
It seems that overexpression of Nup88 was involved in the tumorigenesis and aggressiveness of colorectal cancers, and Nup88 may be used as a prognostic factor in patients with distal tumors.
Emterling
Anna
A
Department of Oncology, Institute of Biomedicine and Surgery, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Skoglund
Johanna
J
Arbman
Gunnar
G
Schneider
Jose
J
Evertsson
Sofia
S
Carstensen
John
J
Zhang
Hong
H
Sun
Xiao-Feng
XF
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009092:Mucous Membrane / Q000737:chemistry; D028861:Nuclear Pore Complex Proteins / Q000032:analysis*
C104835:NUP88 protein, human; D028861:Nuclear Pore Complex Proteins