Association between the expression levels of TAZ, AXL and CTGF and clinicopathological parameters in patients with colon cancer

摘要

Colon cancer accounts for a large proportion of all the cancer-associated.morbidities worldwide. Genetic analysis and stratification of patients based on survival may identify genetic signatures potentially useful for prognostic or treatment planning purposes. Previous studies have reported that the messenger (m)RNA expression levels of tafazzin (TAZ), AXI, receptor tyrosine kinase (AXL) and connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) were able to predict the survival of patients with colon cancer in two independent colon cancer datasets. However, limited clinicopathological data were available from these two datasets. By contrast, a large colon cancer dataset comprising 566 patients has been recently published in the Gene Expression Omnibus database, which contains data regarding tumor stage and location, and genetic status of mismatch repair (MMR), Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog (KRAS), B-Raf proto-oncogcnc serine/threonine kinase (BRAE) and tumor protein p53 (TP53). In the present study, the mRNA expression levels of TAZ, AXE and CTGF were evaluated, and the TAZ-AXL-CTGF signature was correlated with the available pathological parameters and survival data. Overexpression of TAZ, AM.: and CTGF was observed to he associated with severe pathological stage, deficiency in MMR, colon cancer subtype C4 and imitations in the BRAF gene. In addition, overexpression of TAZ-AXL-CTGF was associated with short overall survival in patients with mutations in the TP53 gene, colon cancer subtype C6, proficient MMR and wild -type status of the KRAS and BRAF genes. Furthermore, the prognostic value of TAZ-AXL-CTGF over-expression was observed to he independent of all the clinicopathological parameters and mutational statuses analyzed. The results of the present study confirm the previously reported findings, and suggest that the TAZ-AXL-CTGF mRNA signature is a potential prognostic indicator in colon cancer.