Akt activation correlates with snail expression and potentially determines the recurrence of prostate cancer in patients at stage T2 after a radical prostatectomy
Journal
International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Journal Volume
17
Journal Issue
8
Date Issued
2016
Author(s)
Abstract
Our previous work demonstrated the epithelial-mesenchymal transition factor, Snail, is a potential marker for predicting the recurrence of localized prostate cancer (PCa). Akt activation is important for Snail stabilization and transcription in PCa. The purpose of this study was to retrospectively investigate the relationship between the phosphorylated level of Akt (p-Akt) in radical prostatectomy (RP) specimens and cancer biochemical recurrence (BCR). Using a tissue microarray and immunohistochemistry, the expression of p-Akt was measured in benign and neoplastic tissues from RP specimens in 53 patients whose cancer was pathologically defined as T2 without positive margins. Herein, we observed that the p-Akt level was higher in PCa than in benign tissues and was significantly associated with the Snail level. A high p-Akt image score (?8) was significantly correlated with a higher histological Gleason sum, Snail image score, and preoperative prostate-specific antigen (PSA) value. Moreover, the high p-Akt image score and Gleason score sum (?7) showed similar discriminatory abilities for BCR according to a receiver-operator characteristic curve analysis and were correlated with worse recurrence-free survival according to a log-rank test (p < 0.05). To further determine whether a high p-Akt image score could predict the risk of BCR, a Cox proportional hazard model showed that only a high p-Akt image score (hazard ratio (HR): 3.12, p=0.05)and a high Gleason score sum (?7)(HR:1.18,p=0.05)butnotahighpreoperativePSA value (HR: 0.62, p = 0.57) were significantly associated with a higher risk of developing BCR. Our data indicate that, for localized PCa patients after an RP, p-Akt can serve as a potential prognostic marker that improves predictions of BCR-free survival. ? 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Subjects
Akt; Biochemical recurrence; Prostate cancer; Radical prostatectomy; Snail; Stage T2
Other Subjects
prostate specific antigen; protein kinase B; transcription factor Snail; protein kinase B; SNAI1 protein, human; transcription factor Snail; tumor marker; adult; aged; Article; biochemical recurrence; cancer localization; cancer recurrence; human; human tissue; immunohistochemistry; major clinical study; middle aged; prostate cancer; prostatectomy; protein expression; scoring system; sensitivity and specificity; tissue microarray; cancer grading; cancer staging; enzyme immunoassay; follow up; male; metabolism; pathology; prognosis; prostatectomy; Prostatic Neoplasms; retrospective study; survival rate; tumor recurrence; very elderly; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Biomarkers, Tumor; Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Immunoenzyme Techniques; Male; Middle Aged; Neoplasm Grading; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local; Neoplasm Staging; Prognosis; Prostatectomy; Prostatic Neoplasms; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-akt; Retrospective Studies; Snail Family Transcription Factors; Survival Rate
Publisher
MDPI AG
Type
journal article