BackgroundThere is an unmet clinical need for better prognostic and diagnostic tools for renal cell carcinoma (RCC).MethodsHuman Protein Atlas data resources, including the transcriptomes and proteomes of normal and malignant human tissues, were searched for RCC-specific proteins and cubilin (CUBN) identified as a candidate. Patient tissue representing various cancer types was constructed into a tissue microarray (n = 940) and immunohistochemistry used to investigate the specificity of CUBN expression in RCC as compared to other cancers. Two independent RCC cohorts (n = 181; n = 114) were analyzed to further establish the sensitivity of CUBN as RCC-specific marker and to explore if the fraction of RCCs lacking CUBN expression could predict differences in patient survival.ResultsCUBN was identified as highly RCC-specific protein with 58% of all primary RCCs staining positive for CUBN using immunohistochemistry. In venous tumor thrombi and metastatic lesions, the frequency of CUBN expression was increasingly lost. Clear cell RCC (ccRCC) patients with CUBN positive tumors had a significantly better prognosis compared to patients with CUBN negative tumors, independent of T-stage, Fuhrman grade and nodal status (HR 0.382, CI 0.203–0.719, P = 0.003).ConclusionsCUBN expression is highly specific to RCC and loss of the protein is significantly and independently associated with poor prognosis. CUBN expression in ccRCC provides a promising positive prognostic indicator for patients with ccRCC. The high specificity of CUBN expression in RCC also suggests a role as a new diagnostic marker in clinical cancer differential diagnostics to confirm or rule out RCC.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12885-016-3030-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
PurposeTyrosine kinase inhibitors like sunitinib and sorafenib are commonly used to treat metastatic renal cell cancer patients. Cubilin is a membrane protein expressed in the proximal renal tubule. Cubilin and megalin function together as endocytic receptors mediating uptake of many proteins. There is no established predictive marker for metastatic renal cell cancer patients and the purpose of the present study was to assess if cubilin can predict response to treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors.MethodsCubilin protein expression was analyzsed in tumor tissue from a cohort of patients with metastatic renal cell cancer (n = 139) using immunohistochemistry. One hundred and thirty six of the patients were treated with sunitinib or sorafenib in the first- or second-line setting. Thirty of these were censored because of toxicity leading to the termination of treatment and the remaining (n = 106) were selected for the current study.ResultsFifty-three (50%) of the tumors expressed cubilin in the membrane. The median progression-free survival was 8 months in patients with cubilin expressing tumors and 4 months in the cubilin negative group. In addition, the overall survival was better for patients with cubilin positive tumors. We also found that the fraction of cubilin negative patients was significantly higher in the non-responding group (PFS ≤3 months) compared to responding patients (PFS >3 months).ConclusionsWe show for the first time that tumoral expression of cubilin is a positive predictive marker for treatment of metastatic renal cell cancer patients with sunitinib and sorafenib.
Background and aims: There is no established predictive marker for the treatment of renal cancer. Metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) patients are often treated with sunitinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Sunitinibs anti-cancer effect is at least partly mediated through interfering with angiogenesis. Our aim with the current study was to assess annexin A1 (ANXA1), which stimulates angiogenesis, as a predictive marker for sunitinib therapy in mRCC patients. Since previous studies have indicated a predictive potential for cubilin, we also investigated the predictivity of ANXA1 combined with cubilin.Methods: ANXA1 expression was analysed in tumor tissue from a cohort of patients with advanced RCC (n=139) using immunohistochemistry. Ninety-nine of the patients were treated with sunitinib in the first or second-line setting. Twenty-two of these were censored because of toxicity leading to the termination of treatment and the remaining (n=77) were selected for the present study.Results: Twenty-five (32%) out of seventy-seven of the tumors lacked ANXA1 in the cytoplasm. On statistical analyses using Kaplan-Meier method, aNXA1 negative tumors were significantly associated with a longer treatment benefit in terms of progression free survival (PFS). Overall survival was also significantly better for patients with ANXA1 negative tumors. The combined ANXA1 positive and cubilin negative expression could more accurately than ANXA1 alone define the group not benefitting from treatment.Conclusions: Our results indicate that cytoplasmic expression of ANXA1 is a negative predictive marker for sunitinib therapy in mRCC patients. A possible explanation for this finding is that sunitinibs anti-angiogenic effect cannot overcome the pro-angiogenic drive from many ANXA1 proteins.
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