Soluble Fas might serve as a diagnostic tool for gastric adenocarcinoma

Abstract

BackgroundFas (Apo-1/CD95) and its specific ligand (FasL) are key elements in apoptosis. They have been studied in different malignancies but there are few published studies about the soluble forms of these markers (i.e. sFas/sFasL) in gastric cancer. We have compared the serum levels of sFas/sFasL in gastric adenocarcinoma patients and cases with pre-neoplastic lesions as potential markers for early diagnosis, and investigated their relation with clinicopathological characteristics.MethodsFifty-nine newly-diagnosed cases of gastric adenocarcinoma who had undergone gastrectomy, along with 62 endoscopically- and histologically-confirmed non-cancer individuals were enrolled in this study. sFas/sFasL serum levels were detected by Enzyme Linked Immunosurbent Assay.ResultsMean serum sFas level was significantly higher in gastric cancer patients than in control group (305.97 ± 63.71 (pg/ml) vs. 92.98 ± 4.95 (pg/ml), P < 0.001); while the mean serum level of sFasL was lower in patients with gastric adenocarcinoma (0.138 ± 0.04 (pg/ml) vs. 0.150 ± 0.02 (pg/ml), P < 0.001). Mean serum levels of sFas/sFasL were significantly different in both intestinal/diffuse and cardiac/non-cardiac subtypes when compared to the control group (P < 0.001). There was an increase in the serum level of sFas from the first steps of pre-neoplastic lesions to gastric adenocarcinoma (P < 0.001). Patients who had no lymph node involvement (N0) showed significantly higher serum levels of sFas compared to others (P = 0.044).ConclusionsProduction of sFas may play a critical role in the carcinogenesis of intestinal-type gastric cancer. sFas serum level may serve as a non-invasive tool for early diagnosis of gastric cancer.

Genetic variants in fas signaling pathway genes and risk of gastric cancer

“…proliferation) in the development of the GC subtypes in our high‐risk Chinese population. In support of this proposal, Boroumand‐Noughabi and colleagues found a significantly higher serum level of soluble FasL in Iranian patients with GNCA versus those with GCA ( p = 0.005) suggesting difference in the efficacy of apoptosis in different gastric subtype tumors and/or patient immune reponse to the subtypes. Also, other data suggests that GCA is distinguished from GNCA by differences in risk factors, tumor characteristics, patterns of mRNA profiling and protein expression and genetic alterations .…”

Is Urinary Soluble Fas an Independent Predictor of Non-Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer? A Prospective Chart Study

“…sFas can bind to membrane-bound FasL, thus blocking binding of the ligand to the Fas receptor, preventing apoptosis induction in the target cell and enhancing the immunosuppressive effects of tumors. In fact, higher sFas levels in the serum have been investigated in various cancer types such as lung cancer, leukemia, pancreatic cancer and gastric adenocarcinoma [5,7,8,9]. As for bladder cancer, Mizutani et al [10] reported elevated sFas levels in the serum of patients with bladder cancer and suggested an association of elevated sFas level with poor prognosis in these patients.…”

Prognostic value of serum soluble Fas in patients with locally advanced unresectable rectal cancer receiving concurrent chemoradiotherapy

“…FasL (Apo-1/ CD95 ligand) is a type II membrane protein having homology with tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR) family (Suda et al, 1993;Boroumand-Noughabi et al, 2010), which triggers target cells into apoptosis in several hours by combining with Fas or Fas monoclonal antibody inducing Fas trimerization or oligomerization (Griffith et al, 1995). Fas (Apo-1/CD95) is a type I cellular membrane protein, which belongs to the tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily/the nerve growth factor receptor (Pan et al, 2007).…”