title: Pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2) expression correlates with prognosis in solid cancers: a meta-analysis.
abstract: Pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2) is the key enzyme in the Warburg effect and plays a central role in cancer cell metabolic reprogramming. Recently, quite a few studies have investigated the correlation between PKM2 expression and prognosis in multiple cancer patients, but results were inconsistent. We therefore performed a meta-analysis to explore the prognostic value of PKM2 expression in patients with solid cancer. Here twenty-seven individual studies from 25 publications with a total of 4796 cases were included to explore the association between PKM2 and overall survival (OS) or disease-free survival (DFS)/ progression-free survival (PFS)/ recurrent-free survival (RFS) in subjects with solid cancer. Pooled analysis showed that high levels of PKM2 was significantly associated with a poorer overall survival (HR = 1.73; 95%CI = 1.48-2.03) and DFS/ PFS/ RFS (HR = 1.90; 95%CI = 1.39-2.59) irrespective of cancer types. Different analysis models (univariate or multivariate models), sample-sizes (≤100 or >100), and methods for data collection (direct extraction or indirect extraction) had no impact on the negative prognostic effect of PKM2 over-expression. Nevertheless, stratified by cancer type, high-expression of PKM2 was associated with an unfavorable OS in breast cancer, esophageal squamous carcinoma, hepatocellular carcinoma and gallbladder cancer; whereas was not correlated with a worse OS in pancreatic cancer and gastric cancer. In conclusion, over-expression of PKM2 is associated with poor prognosis in most solid cancers and it might be a potentially useful biomarker for predicting cancer prognosis in future clinical applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325027, China.
authors.forename: Haiyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325027, China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Department of Gynecology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325027, China.
authors.forename: Xuejie
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325027, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoli
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325027, China.
authors.forename: Lihong
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325027, China.
authors.forename: Xueqiong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000378:metabolism; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D049109:Cell Proliferation / Q000502:physiology; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D011770:Pyruvate Kinase / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000378:metabolism*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D002352:Carrier Proteins; D008565:Membrane Proteins; D011770:Pyruvate Kinase
keywords: PKM2; cancer; meta-analysis; prognosis