Overexpression of Pim-1 is associated with poor prognosis in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.
OBJECTIVE
It is well known that provirus integration site for Moloney murine leukemia virus 1 (Pim-1) plays an essential role in the occurrence and development of tumors. Here, we investigated expression of Pim-1 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and assessed the correlation between Pim-1 level and prognosis of the patients with ESCC.


METHODS
Expression of Pim-1 was investigated by RT-PCR, immunohistochemistry, and in situ hybridization methods. Kaplan-Meier statistics was used to examine the relationship between levels of Pim-1 and prognosis using log-rank test.


RESULTS
The results demonstrated that ESCC tissues appeared strong expression levels of Pim-1 mRNA and protein while the normal esophageal tissues were either negative or showed only weak Pim-1 mRNA and protein levels. In addition, we found that Pim-1 expression was significantly correlated with histology grade, clinical staging, and lymph node metastasis (all P < 0.05), but not related to age and sex (all P > 0.05). Furthermore, the results of survival rates analyzed by Kaplan-Meier curve revealed that patients with high Pim-1 mRNA and protein expressions had a poorer prognosis than those with the low Pim-1 expression (P = 0.010 and 0.001, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
These findings demonstrate that Pim-1 may be used as molecular marker for predicting the prognosis of patients with ESCC.
Liu
Hong-Tao
HT
Laboratory for Cell Biology, Department of Bioengineering of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, PR China.
Wang
Ning
N
Wang
Xin
X
Li
Sheng-Lei
SL
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000235:genetics; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000235:genetics; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D051573:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-pim-1 / Q000235:genetics*
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; C496634:PIM1 protein, human; D051573:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-pim-1