The clinical significance of CCBE1 expression in human colorectal cancer

Yan-Rong Zhao,1 Hao Liu,2 Li-Miao Xiao,3 Can-Guang Jin,1 Zhi-Peng Zhang,1 Chun-Guang Yang4 1Department of General Surgery, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China; 2Department of General Surgery, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China; 3Department of Ultrasound, Hunan Children’s Hospital, Changsha, Hunan, China; 4Department of Anesthesiology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China Purpose: The identification and discovery of prognostic markers for colorectal cancer (CRC) are of great clinical significance. CCBE1 is expressed in various tumors and its expression correlates with lymphangiogenesis and angiogenesis. However, the association between CCBE1 expression and CRC outcome has not been reported. The aim of this study was to investigate clinical significance of CCBE1 expression in CRC. Patients and methods: CCBE1 expression was examined in 30 pairs of fresh CRC tissues and compared with adjacent normal (AN) tissues using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR), Western blotting and immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining. Tissue microarray immunohistochemical staining was used to study the CCBE1 expression characteristics of 204 CRC patient samples collected from January 2002 to December 2007, and the relationship of CCBE1 with clinicopathological features and prognosis of CRC was analyzed. Results: CCBE1 was highly expressed in CRC tissues compared with matched AN tissues (P=0.001). Moreover, high expression of CCBE1 was significantly associated with tumor differentiation, lymph node metastasis, vascular invasion, liver metastasis and TNM stage in CRC patients (P≤0.01). Kaplan–Meier survival analysis revealed that high CCBE1 expression, poor tumor differentiation, lymph node metastasis and vascular invasion were significantly associated (allP