Connective tissue growth factor expression hints at aggressive nature of colorectal cancer
- Bhat I.P. [1] ,
- Rather T.B. [1] ,
- Maqbool I. [1] ,
- Rashid G. [1] ,
- Akhtar K. [1] ,
- Bhat G.A. [1] ,
- Parray F.Q. [3] ,
- Syed B. [4] ,
- Khan I.Y. [4] ,
- Kazi M. [6] ,
- Hussain M.D. [5] and
- Syed M. [2]
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Description
BACKGROUND
Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) is a mediator of transforming growth factor-beta signaling and plays a key role in connective tissue remodeling, inflammatory processes and fibrosis in various illnesses including cancer.
AIM
To investigate the role of CTGF in colorectal cancer (CRC) progression and to compare the CTGF expression with different clinicopathological parameters.
METHODS
Real-time polymerase chain reaction, immunohistochemistry and Western blotting was performed to evaluate the CTGF expression and the results were statistically analyzed against the clinicopathological variables of patient data using STATA software version 16.
RESULTS
CTGF expression levels in tumor specimens were significantly higher than their paired normal specimens. The higher protein expression levels showed a significant association with smoking, staging, tumor grade, invasion depth, necrosis of tumor tissue, and both lymphovascular and perineural invasion. As per the cox regression model and classification tree analysis, tumor-node-metastasis stage and perineural invasion were important predictors for CTGF expression and prognosis of CRC patients. Survival analysis indicated that CTGF overexpression was associated with poorer overall and disease-free survival.
CONCLUSION
Expression of CTGF was increased in CRC and was linked with poor overall and disease-free survival of CRC patients. These findings support prior observations and thus CTGF may be a possible prognostic marker in CRC.
Affiliations
- Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar 190011, Jammu and Kashmir, India.
- Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar 190011, Jammu and Kashmir, India. syed.mudassar@skims.ac.in.
- Department of General Surgery, Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar 190011, Jammu and Kashmir, India.
- Department of Pathology, Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar 190011, Jammu and Kashmir, India.
- Department of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, California Health Sciences University, California, CA 93612, United States.
- Department of Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, PO Box 2457, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.