Clinicopathologic Significance of Survivin Expression in Relation to CD133 Expression in Surgically Resected Stage II or III Colorectal Cancer

BACKGROUND: Cancer stem cells have been investigated as new targets for colorectal cancer (CRC) treatment. We recently reported that CD133+ colon cancer cells showed chemoresistance to 5-fluorouracil through increased survivin expression and proposed the survivin inhibitor YM155 as an effective therapy for colon cancer in an in vitro study. Here, we investigate the relationship between survivin and CD133 expression in surgically resected CRC to identify whether the results obtained in our in vitro study are applicable to clinical samples. METHODS: We performed immunohistochemical staining for survivin and CD133 in surgically resected tissue from 187 stage II or III CRC patients. We also comparatively analyzed apoptosis according to survivin and CD133 expression using terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated deoxyuridine triphosphate nick-end labeling. RESULTS: The results of the Mantel-Haenszel test established a linear association between nuclear survivin and CD133 expression (p = .018), although neither had prognostic significance, according to immunohistochemical expression level. No correlation was found between survivin expression and the following pathological parameters: invasion depth, lymph node metastasis, or histologic differentiation (p > .05). The mean apoptotic index in survivin+ and CD133+ tumors was higher than that in negative tumors: 5.116 ± 4.894 in survivin+ versus 4.103 ± 3.691 in survivin– (p = .044); 5.165 ± 4.961 in CD133+ versus 4.231 ± 3.812 in CD133– (p = .034). CONCLUSIONS: As observed in our in vitro study, survivin expression is significantly related to CD133 expression. Survivin may be considered as a new therapeutic target for chemoresistant CRC.

Expression of CD133 protein in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues and its clinical significance / 肿瘤研究与临床

Objective To investigate the expression of CD133 protein in primary lesions of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its clinical significance.Methods The expression of CD133 protein in 190 patients with HCC was detected by immunohistochemical staining ABC method.The correlation of CD133 protein expression with the clinicopathologic parameters and features after operation was analyzed.Results The expression positive rate of CD133 protein in cancer tissues was 22.1％ (42/190).There was significant correlation between the expression of CD133 protein and tumor differentiation (P ＜ 0.001),micro vessel invasion (P =0.016) and hepatitis B virus infection (P =0.024).Univariate analysis of factors demonstrated that differentiation level,lymph node,macro vessel invasion,micro vessel invasion,TNM stage and CD133 expression were correlated with disease-free survival after surgery (all P ＜ 0.05).Multivariate analysis of factors demonstrated that both CD133 expression and micro vessel invasion were independent prognostic factors of disease-free survival after surgery.Prognostic analysis demonstrated that the disease-free survival of CD133 positive group was significantly lower than that of CD133 negative group.Conclusion The CD133 protein expression in HCC tissues is related with development,metastasis and prognosis of HCC.