Expression of monoubiquitination histone H2B in esophageal carcinoma and its clinical significance / 肿瘤研究与临床

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the expression of monoubiquitination histone H2B (H2Bub) in esophageal cancer tissues and its correlation with the prognosis of patients.Methods:A total of 75 patients who underwent thoracic esophagectomy in Shanxi Province Cancer Hospital from May 2010 to December 2015 were selected. The expression of H2Bub protein in esophageal carcinoma and para-carcinoma tissues was detected by using immunohistochemical method. The relationship between H2Bub expression level and the clinicopathological characteristics was analyzed, Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyze the relationship H2Bub expression level and the survival.Results:H2Bub was positively expressed in esophageal carcinoma and para-carcinoma tissues, and weakly positive expressed H2Bub was found in para-carcinoma tissues, while not found in esophageal carcinoma tissues. The strongly positive expression rate of H2Bub in esophageal carcinoma tissues was higher than that in para-carcinoma tissues [84.0% (63/75) vs. 22.7% (17/75), χ2 = 34.68, P < 0.001]. Compared with para-carcinoma tissues, 64.0% (48/75) of H2Bub expression level in carcinoma tissues was up-regulated, and 2.7% (2/75) of H2Bub expression level was down-regulated. The up-regulated expression of H2Bub in esophageal carcinoma tissues compared with para-carcinoma tissues was not related with the gender, age, tumor diameter, lymph node metastasis and T staging (all P > 0.05). The proportion of patients with up-regulated expression of H2Bub in poorly differentiated carcinoma tissues was lower than that in moderately and highly differentiated carcinoma tissues [43.8% (7/16) vs. 66.7% (34/51), 87.5% (7/8), P = 0.037]. The median overall survival time was 70 months (95% CI 45-95 months) and 68 months (95% CI 54-82 months), respectively in 12 esophageal carcinoma patients with moderately positive expressed H2Bub and 63 esophageal carcinoma patients with strongly positive expressed H2Bub, and the difference was statistically significant ( P = 0.606). Among 48 patients with up-regulated expression of H2Bub in esophageal carcinoma tissues compared with para-carcinoma tissues, the median overall survival time of poorly differentiated esophageal carcinoma group (7 cases) was shorter than that of highly differentiated (7 cases) and moderately differentiated (34 cases) esophageal carcinoma group [36 months (95% CI 24-37 months) vs. 68 months (95% CI 38-98 months), 68 months (95% CI 44-91 months)], and the differences were statistically significant (all P < 0.05). Conclusions:The expression level of H2Bub in esophageal carcinoma tissues is up-regulated compared with that in para-carcinoma tissues. The up-regulated H2Bub expression level of patients with poorly differentiated esophageal carcinoma with poor prognosis is obvious.