title: Nuclear overexpression of metastasis-associated protein 1 correlates significantly with poor survival in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Metastasis-associated protein 1 (MTA1) has been associated with poor prognosis in several malignant carcinomas. The purpose of this study was to investigate the expression and prognostic value of MTA1 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).
  
  
  METHODS
  MTA1 expression was assessed using immunohistochemistry in paraffin-embedded tumor specimens from 208 untreated NPC patients. Cox regression analysis was used to calculate the hazard ratio (HR), 95% confidence interval (CI) and identify independent prognostic factors, and recursive partitioning analysis was used to create a decision tree.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Nuclear overexpression of MTA1 was observed in 48.6% (101/208) of the NPC tissues. Nuclear overexpression of MTA1 correlated positively with N classification (P = 0.02), clinical stage (P = 0.04), distant metastasis (P < 0.01) and death (P = 0.01). Additionally, nuclear overexpression of MTA1 correlated significantly with poorer distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS; P <0.01) and poorer overall survival (OS; P < 0.01). MTA1 had prognostic significance in NPC patients with stage II disease, but not stage III or IV disease. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that nuclear overexpression of MTA1 was independently associated with poorer DMFS (HR, 2.05; 95% CI, 1.13-3.72; P = 0.02) and poorer OS (HR, 1.98; 95% CI, 1.09-3.59; P = 0.03). Using recursive partitioning analysis, the NPC patients could be classified with a low, intermediate or high risk of distant metastasis and death, on the basis of clinical stage, age and MTA1 expression.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results of this study suggest that nuclear overexpression of MTA1 correlates significantly with poorer DMFS and poorer OS in NPC. MTA1 has potential as a novel prognostic biomarker in NPC.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou 510060, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Wen-Fei
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Na
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Rui-Xue
authors.initials: RX
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.forename: Qing-Mei
authors.initials: QM
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Mo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: Li-Zhi
authors.initials: LZ
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ma
mesh_terms: D002277:Carcinoma; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000378:metabolism*; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D005260:Female; D006655:Histone Deacetylases / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D000077274:Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D016612:Paraffin Embedding; D011379:Prognosis; D012097:Repressor Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D015996:Survival Rate; D015534:Trans-Activators
chemical_list: C089320:MTA1 protein, human; D012097:Repressor Proteins; D015534:Trans-Activators; D006655:Histone Deacetylases