Expression and clinical significance of retinoid X receptor α in esophageal carcinoma

Purpose Esophageal carcinoma (EC) is one of the most aggressive type cancers and dysregulation of retinoid X receptor α (RXRα) involves various tumors. However, the relationship of RXRα with the clinicopathological factors of EC, particularly prognostic characteristics, remains unclear. This present study was to evaluate the effect of RXRα expression in the development of EC. Methods The mRNA and protein expression level of RXRα in EC and normal esophageal tissues using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blot, respectively. The subcellular localization was detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis. The clinicopathological parameters were included age, sex, tumor size, differentiation, TNM stages and lymph node metastasis. Kaplan-Meier method and Cox's regression analyses were performed to evaluate the prognosis of 60 patients with EC. Results RXRα was elevated in EC tissues comparing with normal esophageal tissues at both mRNA and protein levels. The overexpression level of RXRα was closely associated to the tumor differentiation, TNM stage and lymph node metastasis of patients with EC. In addition, EC patients with RXRα high expression had significantly lower disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). Multivariate analysis showed RXRα expression as an independent predictor for the DFS and OS rate of patients with EC. Conclusions Our results showed that overexpression of RXRα was correlated with unfavorable prognosis, suggesting that RXRα may serve as a potential targeted therapeutic marker in the treatment of EC.