J Cancer 2018; 9(7):1135-1144. doi:10.7150/jca.22546 This issue Cite
Research Paper
1. Department of Thoracic Surgery, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, P. R. China.
2. Department of Immunology and Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology of MOE/MOH, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, P. R. China
*These two authors contributed equally to this work.
Introduction: Esophageal cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in the world. Eukaryotic translation initiation factors 3e (eIF3e) makes a notable difference in the initiation of protein synthesis and tumor progression. However, the role of eIF3e in ESCC has not been revealed yet. This study aims to investigate the bio-functional and prognostic role of eIF3e in human ESCC tissues and cells.
Methods: Immunohistochemical staining and Western blot were performed to detect the eIF3e expression in ESCC patients' tissues. The Kaplan-Meier product limit method and Cox regression were conducted to analyze the association between eIF3e expression, together with other related clinical/pathological features, and patients' prognosis. In the analysis of bio-functional role of eIF3e, CCK-8 and Transwell assay were performed to compare the proliferative and migrative ability after knockdown of eIF3e.
Results: Up-regulation of eIF3e were demonstrated in ESCC tissues compared with the corresponding para-cancerous tissues. Overexpression of eIF3e was associated with deep tumor depth, lymph nodes metastasis, and advanced TNM stage. Importantly, the patients with high eIF3e expression suffered shorter overall and disease-free survival. Lymph node metastasis and histological grade served as independent prognostic predictors in patients' prognosis. Knockdown of eIF3e could inhibit cell proliferation and migration, in vitro.
Conclusions: The eIF3e expression, or combined with other members of eIF3 complex, might predict poor prognosis of ESCC and serve as a potential breakthrough in the multimodality therapy of ESCC.
Keywords: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, Eukaryotic translation initiation factors 3e, prognosis