OncoTargets and Therapy (May 2016)
URG4 expression is a novel prognostic factor for the progression of nasopharyngeal carcinoma and overall survival of patient
Abstract
Guodong Yu,1,* Qingxiang Meng,2,* Tian Zhang,1 Chen Zeng,1 Benfu He,3 Shanshan Zhang1 1ENT and HN Surgery Department, Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, Guizhou, 2Department of Otorhinolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, Guangzhou First People’s Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangdong, 3Oncology Department, PLA421 Hospital, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: URG4, a novel oncogene, is involved in the development and progression of various tumors. This study investigated the clinicopathological significance of URG4 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). We used five NPC tissues and adjacent normal nasopharyngeal tissues to determine URG4 expression and found that URG4 was upregulated in NPC tissues. Immunohistochemistry analysis found URG4 was expressed positively in 97.1% (99/102) of NPC samples and highly expressed in 41.2% (42/102) of NPC samples. Its level was positively correlated with advancing clinical stage. Kaplan–Meier analysis with the log-rank test found that patients with high URG4 expression had poor outcome and patients with low URG4 expression had better survival. Statistical analysis showed that there was a significant correlation between URG4 expression and clinical stage, larger tumor size, and lymph node involvement. Cox-regression analysis showed that URG4 expression could serve as a prognostic factor for NPC patients. In summary, this study showed that URG4 was upregulated in NPC tissues, patients with high URG4 expression had poor outcome, and URG4 was found to be a valuable biomarker for NPC progression. Keywords: URG4, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, prognostic factor
