Preliminary Studies On Expression And Clinical Significance Of E2F7 In Colon Cancer

Objective:To detect the protein expression of E2F7 and epithelial-mesenchymal transition(EMT)related biomarkers(E-cadherin and vimentin)in colon cancer tissues.Analyze the relationship of the protein expression of E2F7 with various clinicopathological characters in colon cancer patients.And explore the association between E2F7 and EMT in colon cancer.Methods:65 cases of colon cancer tissues and 15 cases of normal adjacent tissues with clear pathological diagnosis were collected.The expression levels of E2F,E-cadherin and vimentin in colon cancer tissues and normal adjacent tissues were detected by immunohistochemical staining.The relationship of E2F7 protein expression with clinicopathological characters in colon cancer patients was analyzed.Then the correlation between the protein expression of E2F7 and EMT related biomarkers(E-cadherin and vimentin)in colon cancer tissues were analyzed by Spearman's rank correlation.Results:1.Immunohistochemical staining showed that the positive rates of E2F7 and vimentin protein in colon cancer tissues were significantly higher than those in normal adjacent tissues(P<0.05).The positive rate of E-cadherin protein in colon cancer tissues was significantly lower than that in normal adjacent tissues(P<0.05).2.The high expression of E2F7 protein in colon cancer was closely associated with tumor diameter(P=0.036),lymph node metastasis(P=0.023),distant metastasis(P=0.039)and TNM stage(P=0.005).While E2F7 expression had no relationship to age,gender or histological differentiation(P>0.05).3.The protein expression level of E2F7 was negatively correlated with E-cadherin in colon cancers(r?-0.39,P<0.01),whereas the protein expression for E2F7 and vimentin were positively correlated(r=0.53,P<0.01).Conclusion:E2F7 was upregulated in colon cancer and it may promote tumor progression through EMT process.E2F7 may be a potential molecular biomarker for the diagnosis and treatment of colon cancer.