Research Paper Volume 9, Issue 4 pp 1326—1340

Figure 1. The expression of BMP2 is up-regulated in NPC and correlates with poor prognosis. (A) qRT-PCR analysis showed that the expression of BMP2 mRNA was significantly higher in NPC tumor tissues (n=22) than non-cancerous nasopharyngitis tissues (n=14) (** p<0.01, independent Student’s t-test). (B) The expression level of BMP2 in NPC cell lines (HONE1, SUNE1, CNE2, C666-1, S18, S26, 6-10B and 5-8F) and the normal epithelial NP69 was analyzed by Western blot. NP69 showed a relative low level of endogenous BMP2 protein expression and the protein expression level of BMP2 was obviously higher in S-18 and 5-8F cells with high tumorigenic and metastatic potential compared with their paired subclones S-26 and 6-10B cells with low tumorigenic and metastatic potential. (C) BMP2 immunostaining of representative images of NPC patients with different IHC scores. (D, E, F). Patients with high expression of BMP2 had shorter overall survival (OS) (D), progression-free survival (PFS) (E), and distant-metastasis-free survival (DMFS) (F) than those with low levels of BMP2.