Phosph-Akt1 expression is associated with a favourable prognosis in pancreatic cancer

<p><b>INTRODUCTION</b>Akt, a serine/threonine protein kinase, mediates growth factor-associated cell survival. In several human cancers, including pancreatic cancer, constitutive activation of Akt (phosphorylated Akt, p-Akt) has been observed and may be associated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy resistance. However, there are contradictory viewpoints in p-Akt in pancreatic cancer on prognosis, and the clinical relevance of p-Akt in pancreatic cancer is not well understood. This study aims to investigate the expressions and relevance of Akt and p-Akt1 in pancreatic cancer tissues and their clinical significance.</p><p><b>MATERIALS AND METHODS</b>The expressions of Akt and p-Akt in 74 surgically resected paraffin-embedded pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma samples and 10 normal pancreatic tissue samples were examined by immunohistochemistry. The associations of their expression with clinicopathological and survival data were analysed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The positive expression rate of Akt and p-Akt1 were 87.8% and 83.8%, respectively, which were remarkably higher then those in normal pancreatic tissue (P <0.05). There was a positive correlation between the expression of Akt and p-Akt1. High p-Akt1 expression correlated with lower T stage (P = 0.004), while Akt was not associated with any clinicopathologic variables. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that higher expression of Akt, p-Akt1 were respectively correlated with favourable prognosis (16.0[4.7-27.3] vs 9.3[9.0-9.6] months, P = 0.007, and 23.0[12.2-33.8] vs 11.1[7.5-14.7] months, P = 0.004, respectively). Multivariate analysis identified p-Akt1 as a significant independent favourable prognostic factor (HR=0.421, P = 0.010).</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>These results suggest that high p-Akt1 expression may be a favourable prognostic factor in pancreatic cancer.</p>

Expression and significance of SEL1L and p63 protein in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and precarcinomacous lesion / 上海第二医科大学学报

Objective To investigate the expression of SEL1L and p63 protein in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and precarcinomacous lesion.Methods Immunohistochemical staining(EnVision method)was employed to detect the expression of SEL1L and p63 protein in 60 samples of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma,32 samples of high grade esophageal intraepithelial neoplasia,13 samples of low grade esophageal intraepithelial neoplasia and 33 samples of normal esophageal mucosa.Results The positive rate of SEL1L protein expression was 61.5%in low grade intraepithelia neoplasia,90.6%in high grade intraepithelial neoplasia and 96.7%in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma,significantly higher than that in normal esophageal mucosa(6.1%)(P0.05).Conclusion Both the expression of SEL1L and p63 protein increases steadily in the progression of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma,which indicates that the two genes may play a role and cooperate with each other in the carcinogenesis.