Overexpression of N‑cadherin and β‑catenin correlates with poor prognosis in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Sun,Hong; Liu,Mingyu; Wu,Xuewen; Yang,Chunguang; Zhang,Yanni; Xu,Zhenhang; Gao,Kelei; Wang,Fengjun

doi:10.3892/ol.2017.5645

Overexpression of N‑cadherin and β‑catenin correlates with poor prognosis in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Authors:
- Hong Sun
- Mingyu Liu
- Xuewen Wu
- Chunguang Yang
- Yanni Zhang
- Zhenhang Xu
- Kelei Gao
- Fengjun Wang
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Affiliations: Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410008, P.R. China
Published online on: January 25, 2017 https://doi.org/10.3892/ol.2017.5645
Pages: 1725-1730

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Abstract

An increasing amount of evidence demonstrates that epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is important in tumor invasion and metastases. The cell‑cell adhesion molecule N‑cadherin and the Wnt/β‑catenin cascade protein β‑catenin are two biomarkers of EMT. The present study aimed to measure the expression levels of N‑cadherin and β‑catenin in samples from patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and evaluate their prognostic significance. N‑cadherin and β‑catenin mRNA was evaluated using reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction in 26 NPC tissue samples and 8 nasopharyngeal epithelium samples. Protein expression of N‑cadherin and β‑catenin was also detected using immunohistochemistry in 128 archival NPC paraffin‑embedded specimens. Finally, associations between clinical pathological parameters and prognostic values in NPC were evaluated. The results demonstrated that both the mRNA and protein levels of N‑cadherin and β‑catenin were significantly increased in NPC tissues compared with the controls. Enhanced expression of N‑cadherin and β‑catenin protein was strongly correlated with the status of lymph node metastasis and clinical stages in patients with NPC. Notably, high expression of N‑cadherin and β‑catenin proteins was significantly correlated with lower overall survival (OS) rate in patients with NPC. Finally, multivariate analysis demonstrated that expression of N‑cadherin protein and clinical stages were independent prognostic factors for patients with NPC. Therefore, the present study demonstrated that N‑cadherin and β‑catenin expression may be used as potential prognostic biomarkers for patients with NPC.

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