Research Paper Volume 16, Issue 9 pp 7889—7901
Predictive value of FCGBP expression for treatment response and survival in rectal cancer patients undergoing chemoradiotherapy
- 1 Department of Oncology, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70456, Taiwan
- 2 National Institute of Cancer Research, National Health Research Institutes, Zhunan 35053, Taiwan
- 3 Department of Internal Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70456, Taiwan
- 4 Institute of Clinical Medicine, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70101, Taiwan
- 5 Department of Radiation Oncology, Chi Mei Medical Center, Tainan 71004, Taiwan
- 6 Department of Pharmacy, Chia-Nan University of Pharmacy and Science, Tainan 71710, Taiwan
- 7 Division of Colon and Rectal Surgery, Department of Surgery, Chi Mei Medical Center, Tainan 71004, Taiwan
- 8 Division of General Internal Medicine, Chi Mei Medical Center, Tainan 710, Taiwan
- 9 Department of Environment Engineering and Science, Chia Nan University of Pharmacy and Science, Tainan 71710, Taiwan
- 10 Department of Medical Technology, Chung Hwa University of Medical Technology, Tainan 71703, Taiwan
- 11 National Institute of Cancer Research, National Health Research Institutes, Tainan 70456, Taiwan
Received: January 2, 2024 Accepted: March 26, 2024 Published: May 3, 2024
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205791How to Cite
Copyright: © 2024 Su et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Despite neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) being the established standard for treating advanced rectal cancer, clinical outcomes remain suboptimal, necessitating the identification of predictive biomarkers for improved treatment decisions. Previous studies have hinted at the oncogenic properties of the Fc fragment of IgG binding protein (FCGBP) in various cancers; however, its clinical significance in rectal cancer remains unclear. In this study, we first conducted an analysis of a public transcriptome comprising 46 rectal cancer patients. Focusing on cell adhesion during data mining, we identified FCGBP as the most upregulated gene associated with CRT resistance. Subsequently, we assessed FCGBP immunointensity using immunohistochemical staining on 343 rectal cancer tissue blocks. Elevated FCGBP immunointensity correlated with lymph node involvement before treatment (p = 0.001), tumor invasion, and lymph node involvement after treatment (both p < 0.001), vascular invasion (p = 0.001), perineural invasion (p = 0.041), and reduced tumor regression (p < 0.001). Univariate analysis revealed a significant association between high FCGBP immunoexpression and inferior disease-specific survival, local recurrence-free survival, and metastasis-free survival (all p ≤ 0.0002). Furthermore, high FCGBP immunoexpression independently emerged as an unfavorable prognostic factor for all three survival outcomes in the multivariate analysis (all p ≤ 0.025). Enriched pathway analysis substantiated the role of FCGBP in conferring resistance to radiation. In summary, our findings suggest that elevated FCGBP immunoexpression in rectal cancer significantly correlates with a poor response to CRT and diminished patient survival. FCGBP holds promise as a valuable prognostic biomarker for rectal cancer patients undergoing CRT.
Abbreviations
CRC: colorectal cancer; CRT: chemoradiotherapy; CT: computed tomography; DSS: disease-specific survival; EMT: epithelial-mesenchymal transition; FCGBP: Fc fragment of IgG binding protein; GO: gene ontology; LRFS: local recurrence-free survival; MeFS: metastasis-free survival; MUC2: Mucin 2.