Elevated serum LAMC2 is associated with lymph node metastasis and predicts poor prognosis in penile squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

PurposeMolecular biomarkers, especially serologic factors, have been widely applied in cancer diagnosis and patient follow-up. However, there are few valuable prognostic factors in penile squamous cell carcinoma (PSCC). Here, the authors investigated whether laminin gamma 2 (LAMC2) expression, especially serum LAMC2 (sLAMC2) level, was a suitable prognostic factor that could aid in the prediction of survival in PSCC.Patients and methodsThis study included 114 PSCC patients. Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction, Western blotting, and immunohistochemistry were performed to detect LAMC2 expression; enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays were used to test sLAMC2 concentration; and a Transwell assay and an in vivo experiment in nude mice were used to test PSCC cell migration, invasion, and metastasis. The chi-squared test was used to analyze the association between LAMC2 level and clinical parameters, the Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to evaluate the hazard ratio for death, and Kaplan–Meier analysis with a log-rank test was used for the survival analysis.ResultsLAMC2 was overexpressed in PSCC tissues, and the LAMC2 expression level was higher in metastatic lymph node (LN) tissues than in primary cancer tissues; moreover, the LAMC2 levels in primary cancer tissues and sLAMC2 were higher in patients with LN metastasis than in those without LN metastasis. Upregulated LAMC2 facilitated the migration, invasion, and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition of PSCC cells in vitro and promoted LN metastasis of PSCC cells in nude mice. Elevated LAMC2 levels were strongly correlated with advanced clinicopathologic parameters, especially LN metastasis, in PSCC patients and predicted shorter disease-specific survival. The predictive value of sLAMC2 is superior to that of C-reactive protein and squamous cell carcinoma antigen previously reported in PSCC patients, and a stratification analysis revealed that the level of sLAMC2 had a higher predictive value for disease-specific survival in early penile cancer (especially at the N0/X stage) than in later-stage penile cancer.ConclusionThese findings suggest that sLAMC2 is a potential serologic prognostic marker in PSCC and could aid in risk stratification in early-stage PSCC patients.

HHLA2 and PD-L1 co-expression predicts poor prognosis in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma

“…immunohistochemistry Immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining for HHLA2, PD-L1, CD8, and CD4 was accomplished by a professional pathologist. [23][24][25] After deparaffinization, rehydration, antigen retrieval, endogenous peroxidase inactivation, and blocking non-specific binding, the 4 µM-thick sections were incubated with primary antibodies (anti-HHLA2: Sigma-Aldrich, HPA055478; anti-PD-L1: cell signaling technology, CST #13684; anti-CD8: CST, #85336; anti-CD4: Abcam, ab252199) at 4°C overnight. Then, the slides were incubated with a corresponding secondary antibody and visualized by using a DAKO EnVision Detection System (Dako).…”

Up‐regulation of indoleamine 2,3‐dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) expression and catalytic activity is associated with immunosuppression and poor prognosis in penile squamous cell carcinoma patients

“…The PSCC cell lines (Penl1, Penl2, and 149Rca), which were previously established by our group [21‐23], and the lung squamous carcinoma cell line H596 (ATCC HTB‐178, American Type Culture Collection, Manassas, VA, USA) were cultured in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (Gibco, Grand Island, NY, USA) supplemented with 10% heat‐inactivated fetal bovine serum (Gibco, Grand Island, NY, USA) at 37°C with 5% CO 2 .…”

Silencing of hsa_circ_0101145 reverses the epithelial-mesenchymal transition in hepatocellular carcinoma via regulation of the miR-548c-3p/LAMC2 axis

“…The luciferase reporter assay confirmed that miR-548c-3p interacted with LAMC2 3’UTR, which is also known as the laminin γ2 chain gene. Recent results suggest that LAMC2 could function as an oncogene to enhance the progression of many types of cancer, including penile squamous cell carcinoma [ 23 ], esophageal squamous cell carcinoma [ 24 ], gastric cancer [ 25 ], tongue squamous cell carcinoma [ 26 ], and colorectal cancer [ 27 ]. Silencing of LAMC2 reversed the EMT, invasion, and metastasis abilities [ 28 , 29 ].…”