title: Prognostic significance of Versican expression in gastric adenocarcinoma.
abstract: Gastric cancer (GC) is the leading malignancy in the digestive system. Versican is a ubiquitous component of the extracellular matrix and has a role in tumor progression. We aim to examine the expression of Versican in GC and the relationship between Versican levels and patient survival. We detected the mRNA expression of Versican in tumorous pairs and adjacent normal tissues (ANTs) of 78 GC patients by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. The protein expression of Versican in 101 cases of matched GC and ANT, as well as in 27 intraepithelial neoplastic (IN) samples, was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. We analyzed the correlation between Versican levels and clinical outcomes. Finally, we performed CCK-8 cell counting assay and transwell assay in GC cell lines. Versican mRNA expression was significantly greater in tumor tissues (P<0.001) than in ANT. Versican was majorly expressed in the stroma surrounding tumor epithelium and minorly some areas of tumor epithelium. The Versican expression level was higher in GC than in ANT (P=0.004), but no significant difference was observed between ANT and IN (P=0.517). The Versican mRNA and protein levels were consistent in GC. High Versican mRNA and protein expression correlated with greater tumor invasion depth (P=0.030, P=0.027). Univariate and multivariate analysis revealed that patients with high Versican mRNA expression exhibited poor disease-specific survival (P<0.001). In vitro experiments showed that Versican overexpression promoted cell proliferation and invasion. Our data indicate that Versican may be a novel prognostic indicator in GC and may be a potential target for clinical diagnosis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China.|Clinical and Pathological Diagnosis Center, Ningbo, China.|Institute of Pathology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: X-H
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Pathology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: W-R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Pathology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: M-D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Pathology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Pathology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Pathology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Q-Y
authors.initials: QY
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Pathology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: S-J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Ni
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Pathology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: W-W
authors.initials: WW
authors.lastname: Weng
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Pathology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Pathology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, First Hospital Affiliated to Xinjiang Medical University, Wulumuqi, China.
authors.forename: Y-Q
authors.initials: YQ
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, First Hospital Affiliated to Xinjiang Medical University, Wulumuqi, China.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Pathology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: W-Q
authors.initials: WQ
authors.lastname: Sheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Y-Q
authors.initials: YQ
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Pathology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.|Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Du