Overexpression of Wnt7α protein predicts poor survival in patients with colorectal carcinoma

Abstract

Wnt7α (wingless-type MMTV integration site family, member 7A) is a secreted glycoprotein that plays a critical role in tumorigenesis and development by controlling cell proliferation and differentiation. Whether Wnt7α has the properties of an oncogene or not is an interesting issue because of its diverse expression in different tumors. In the present study, Wnt7α protein expression was evaluated through immunohistochemistry and Western blot analysis. Univariate and multivariate analyses were applied to explore the associations between Wnt7α staining score and various clinical parameters, including overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS), and a total of 212 patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) were surveyed. Wnt7α was strongly expressed in most CRC tissues but weakly expressed in adjacent normal mucosa, colorectal adenomas, and colonic polyps. High levels of Wnt7α expression were strongly associated with tumor size (P = 0.006), lymph node involvement (P < 0.001), and the international tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage (P = 0.005). Patients with strong Wnt7α expression showed significantly poorer OS and DFS than patients with weak Wnt7α expression (P < 0.0001, both). Multivariate Cox analysis confirmed that Wnt7α protein expression and TNM stage are independent factors of adverse OS and DFS in CRC patients. Taken together, our results present evidence that Wnt7α overexpression is associated with an unfavorable prognosis and that positive Wnt7α, in addition to TNM stage, may be an independent prognosis factor influencing OS and DFS prediction in CRC patients.

GPR124 regulates microtubule assembly, mitotic progression, and glioblastoma cell proliferation

“…In cervical cancer and nonsmall cell lung cancer, WNT7A has been found to function as a tumor suppressor (Calvo et al, ; Ramos‐Solano et al, ; Winn et al, ). However, high levels of WNT7A have been found to contribute significantly to the progression of ovarian cancer (Yoshioka et al, ) and overexpression of WNT7A was significantly associated with poorer survival outcomes in patients with colorectal cancer (Wang et al, ). Thus, the activation of WNT7A signaling by GPR124 could affect proliferation in a manner that is highly dependent on cancer cell type.…”

Cooperation between ETS transcription factor ETV1 and histone demethylase JMJD1A in colorectal cancer

“…6A). WNT7A is a secreted morphogen that is overexpressed in colorectal cancer and may activate cancer-associated fibroblasts, which enhances tumor aggressiveness (82,83). Likewise, WNT11 is overexpressed in colon cancer and may promote colorectal cancer cell growth and invasion (84,85).…”

High expression of Wnt7a protein predicts a poor survival in patients with colorectal carcinoma

“…known to be either positive or negative indicators of the disease, which indicates these complementary biomarkers may contribute to risk assessment and aid in the personalized treatment of CRC patients [7][8][9]15]. Histological and serological samples are also be easily collected from patients.…”

“…Carmon and Loose [14] found in endometrial cancer cells by co-immunoprecipitation that Wnt7a activates the canonical Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway by binding to Fzd5, which ultimately leads to cell proliferation. In colorectal cancer, it has been shown that high expression of Wnt7a protein predicts poor survival in patients with colorectal carcinoma [15]. However, the role that Wnt7a plays in colorectal cancer remains unknown.…”