Prognostic value of TIGAR and LC3B protein expression in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Abstract

PurposeAutophagy, the process responsible for degrading cytoplasmic organelles to sustain cellular metabolism, has been associated with cancer initiation and progression. As TP53-induced glycolysis and apoptosis regulator (TIGAR) is among the important genes that can regulate autophagy, we aimed to investigate the correlation between the expression levels of TIGAR and the autophagy-related protein microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3 (LC3B), as well as their association with clinical outcomes, in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients.MethodsWe detected the expressions of TIGAR and LC3B in 182 NPC tissue samples via immunohistochemical staining.ResultsA significant correlation between TIGAR and LC3B expressions was identified (P=0.045). Moreover, survival analysis showed that TIGAR− or LC3B+ expression was associated with improved overall survival, local regional failure-free survival, distant failure-free survival, and failure-free survival rates, compared with TIGAR+ or LC3B− expression, respectively. Meanwhile, when combining TIGAR with LC3B expression in terms of prognostic value, patients with TIGAR+/LC3B− expression were significantly disadvantaged with regard to overall survival, local regional failure-free survival, distant failure-free survival, and failure-free survival compared with other groups based on the log-rank test and Cox regression analyses (all P<0.05).ConclusionTIGAR and LC3B may be novel biomarkers for predicting the prognosis of NPC patients and could be utilized as potential targets for future therapeutics aimed at treating NPC patients.

TP53 Induced Glycolysis and Apoptosis Regulator and Monocarboxylate Transporter 4 drive metabolic reprogramming with c‐MYC and NFkB activation in breast cancer

“…TIGAR is highly expressed in many cancer types, driving proliferation, migration, invasion, crosstalk with NFkB and tumor burden 20‐25 . TIGAR drives breast cancer tumor growth with glycolysis in fibroblasts and utilization of lactate to fuel OXPHOS and ATP production in carcinoma cells 8 .…”

“…TIGAR is highly expressed in many cancer types, driving proliferation, migration, invasion, crosstalk with NFkB and tumor burden. [20][21][22][23][24][25] TIGAR drives breast cancer tumor growth with glycolysis in fibroblasts and utilization of lactate to fuel OXPHOS and ATP production in carcinoma cells. 8 Together these studies demonstrate TIGAR expression drives cancer progression and aggressiveness, but the mechanisms remain poorly characterized.…”

Nuclear TIGAR mediates an epigenetic and metabolic autoregulatory loop via NRF2 in cancer therapeutic resistance

“…In addition, TIGAR has been reported to be involved in different stages of cancer progression, including development and metastasis 16 , 17 , 18 . High levels of TIGAR were observed in multiple types of cancers and correlated strongly with poor survival of patients in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, ovarian cancer, lung cancer and nasopharyngeal carcinoma 9 , 17 , 19 , 20 , 21 . Moreover, several studies showed that TIGAR was associated with cancer therapy resistance.…”

Prognostic value of PD-L1 and Siglec-15 expression in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma

“…Significant progress has been achieved in the treatment of NPC with the development of intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), but the local recurrence and distant metastasis rates after treatment are still more than 30% 2 . It is known that the survival and prognosis of patients with NPC are affected by several factors, such as the TNM stage, TIGAR, TC3B, and other biological factors 3 , 4 . The identification of more effective biomarkers not only facilitates prognosis prediction, but also provides promising targets for treatment purposes, which would be extremely useful for NPC patients.…”