Expression of transcriptional coactivator with PDZ-binding motif (TAZ) in colon cancer tissues and its clinical significance / 中华胃肠外科杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the expression of transcriptional coactivator with PDZ-binding motif(TAZ) in colon cancer tissues and its association with clinicopathological parameters and prognosis of patients.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The expression of TAZ protein was detected in 56 resected colon cancer tissues and matched tumor-adjacent tissues using immunohistochemistry. The positive expression rate of TAZ was compared between patients with different clinicopathological features. The association between TAZ expression and prognosis was analyzed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Expression of TAZ protein located in the nucleolus. The positive expression rate of TAZ in colon cancer tissues was significantly higher than that in matched tumor-adjacent tissues(73.2% vs. 12.5%, P=0.000). Clinicopathological evaluation suggested that the expression of TAZ protein was associated with tumor size(P=0.009), depth of infiltration(P=0.026), lymph node metastasis (P=0.007) and TNM staging(P=0.004). Colon cancer patients with negative expression of TAZ showed a better 5-year survival as compared with those with positive expression of TAZ (66.7% vs. 22.9%, P=0.0017). Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that positive TAZ expression was an independent factor for predicting poor prognosis in colon cancer (HR:3.532, 95% CI: 1.3-9.9, P=0.016).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The expression of TAZ protein is up-regulated in colon cancer tissues and its high expression is associated with poor prognosis of colon cancer patients.</p>