Expression of c-fos was associated with clinicopathologic characteristics and prognosis in pancreatic cancer

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 10; no. 3; p. e0120332
• Main Authors: Guo, Jun-Chao, Li, Jian, Zhao, Yu-Pei, Zhou, Li, Cui, Quan-Cai, Zhou, Wei-Xun, Zhang, Tai-Ping, You, Lei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 19.03.2015; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Analysis; Biomarkers, Tumor - metabolism; c-Fos protein; Cancer; Cohort Studies; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Immunohistochemistry; Lymphatic system; Male; Medical prognosis; Metastasis; Middle Aged; Multivariate analysis; Neoplasm Staging; Ovarian cancer; Pancreatic cancer; Pancreatic Neoplasms - diagnosis; Pancreatic Neoplasms - mortality; Pancreatic Neoplasms - pathology; Patients; Prognosis; Proportional Hazards Models; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-fos - genetics; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-fos - metabolism; Signal transduction; Staining; Surgery; Survival; Survival Rate; Tissue Array Analysis; Tissues; Beijing China; China
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0120332

It has long been regarded that pancreatic cancer (PC) is a life-threatening malignant tumor. Thus, much attention has been paid for factors, especially relative molecules, predictive for prognosis of PC. However, c-fos expression in PC was less investigated. In addition, its association with clinicopathologic variables and prognosis remains unknown. In the present study, expression of c-fos was detected by tissue microarray-based immunohistochemical staining in cancer and adjacent tissues from 333 patients with PC. The staining results were correlated with clinicopathologic parameters and overall survival. Furthermore, prognostic significance of c-fos in subsets of PC was also evaluated. It was shown that low expression of c-fos was more often in cancer than in adjacent tissues of PC (P<0.001). Besides, high cancerous c-fos expression was significantly associated with tumor site and T stage, whereas peri-neural invasion was of a borderline significant relevance. Log-rank test revealed that high expression of c-fos in cancer tissues was a significant marker of poor overall survival, accompanied by some conventional clinicopathologic variables, such as sex, grade, peri-neural invasion, T and N stages. More importantly, cancerous c-fos expression was identified as an independent prognosticator in multivariate analysis. Finally, the prognostic implication of c-fos expression was proven in four subsets of patients with PC. These data suggested that c-fos expression was of relationships with progression and dismal prognosis of PC.