Evaluation of serum HGF and CK18 levels in patients with esophageal cancer

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Cytokeratins are thought to play a role in apoptosis. Cytokeratin 18 (CK18) is involved in the formation of intracellular cytoskeleton, and has been considered a promising apoptosis marker in gastrointestinal carcinomas. Growth factors, including hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), may provide a microenvironment for malignant cells. In this study, we aimed to compare serum HGF and CK18 levels between esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients and healthy controls. The study included 41 adult patients (20 male, 21 female) diagnosed with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, with a mean age of 63.54 ± 10.88 years (range, 41-82 years). We also recruited 39 age and gender-matched healthy control subjects. Venous blood samples were taken; serum HGF and CK18 concentrations were determined via ELISA. Results indicated that serum HGF levels were higher in patients (1.37 ± 0.63 ng/mL) as compared to the healthy subjects (0.41 ± 0.29 ng/mL). Similarly, serum CK18 levels were higher in the patient group (2.53 ± 1.33 ng/mL) than in the control group (0.34 ± 0.23 ng/mL) (P < 0.001). In addition, serum HGF and CK18 levels were positively correlated with metastasis stage, tumor stage, and disease stage of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. To our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate serum HGF and CK18 levels in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. The results suggest that serum CK18 and HGF levels may be used as prognostic and disease monitoring biomarkers of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Prognostic value of non-invasive serum Cytokeratin 18 detection in gastrointestinal cancer: a meta-analysis

“…Patients with relatively lower level of total and caspase cleaved CK18 were predicted to have better prognosis. This observation is consistent with reports from other types of cancers, including breast cancer, lung cancer and esophageal cancer [31,33,34]. However, results from immunohistochemistry staining of CK18 in breast cancer samples manifested reverse results [33].…”

KRT18 is correlated with the malignant status and acts as an oncogene in colorectal cancer

“…KRT18 is a type I intermediate filament protein that extends from the surface of the nucleus to the cell membrane, and involved in a variety of cellular processes including cell proliferation, cell cycle, apoptosis, motility, and cell signaling [14]. In recent decade, KRT18 was suggested to be up-regulated in various human tumor tissues including lung cancer [15], invasive breast cancer [16], esophageal cancer [17], gastric cancer [18], hepatocellular carcinoma [19], bladder cancer [20], ovarian cancer [21], oral squamous cell carcinoma [22], pancreatic cancer [23], prostate cancer [24], and so on. Drew et al [12]performed multivariate discriminant analysis on the hCellMarkerPlex gene expression data including human colon normal tissues, colon adenomatous polyp tissues and colon carcinoma tissues, and found that colon normal tissues had significantly low KRT18 expression compared with colon adenomatous polyp tissues and colon carcinoma tissues.…”

HGF/MET pathway aberrations as diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive biomarkers in human cancers

“…Higher serum levels of HGF also showed significant correlation with the stage of disease and survival [216]. Similarly, in another study, increased serum levels of HGF were found to be correlated with tumor stage (p ¼ .002) and metastasis (p < .001) [217]. Conversely, conflicting results emerged from a study concerning the prognostic value of HGF in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients.…”