OncoTargets and Therapy (Dec 2020)
High Centromere Protein-A (CENP-A) Expression Correlates with Progression and Prognosis in Gastric Cancer
Abstract
Yuan Xu,1 Chao Liang,1 Xianlei Cai,1 Miaozun Zhang,1 Weiming Yu,1 Qinshu Shao2 1Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Ningbo Medical Center Lihuili Hospital, Ningbo 315000, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Gastrointestinal Pancreatic Surgery, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital, Hangzhou 310014, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Yuan XuDepartment of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Ningbo Medical Center Lihuili Hospital, No. 57 Xingning Road, Yinzhou District, Ningbo 315000, Zhejiang Province, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86-0574-87018617Email [email protected]: Recent studies have established the ability of centromere protein-A (CENP-A) to perform as an oncogene, regulating tumor progression. The aim of this research was to explore the relationship between CENP-A expression and clinical significance in gastric cancer (GC) patients.Materials and Methods: Experiments with a microarray were conducted using the Affymetrix U133 plus 2.0 GeneChip Array. Upregulated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified via the GEO2R and intersected using a Venn diagram. Bioinformatic databases Omcomine, GEPIA, and Ualcan were applied to investigate the expression level of CENP-A in GC. The real-time quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) was used to validate the level of CENP-A mRNA in GC. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was employed to verify the protein levels of CENP-A, while the relationship between CENP-A expression and patients’ clinical parameters in GC was explored through the use of IHC. Kaplan-Meier analysis was conducted to evaluate the prognostic significance of CENP-A. Additionally, the Kaplan-Meier plotter database (KM plotter) was used to verify the prognostic function of CENP-A in GC patients.Results: The results indicated that CENP-A was significantly overexpressed, both in protein and mRNA levels of GC tissues, compared to adjacent noncancerous tissues (P< 0.05). Furthermore, we observed that CENP-A expression was positively associated with TNM stage, tumor classification, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, and Lauren type (P< 0.05). Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that patients with an overexpression of CENP-A had significantly poorer overall survival (OS) times (P< 0.05). Multivariate analysis suggested CENP-A may serve as an independent predicting factor for the poor outcome of GC patients.Conclusion: Our results show that CENP-A upregulation is significantly correlated with advanced tumor progression and poor prognosis. CENP-A may function as a novel potential biomarker for predicting the clinical outcomes of GC patients.Keywords: CENP-A, gastric cancer, survival analysis, poor prognosis
