β2microglobulin mRNA expression levels are prognostic for lymph node metastasis in colorectal cancer patients

J. Shrout, M. Yousefzadeh, A. Dodd, K. Kirven, C. Blum, A. Graham, K. Benjamin, R. Hoda, M. Krishna, M. Romano, M. Wallace, E. Garrett-Mayer, M. Mitas

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

25 Scopus citations

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the fourth most common non-cutaneous malignancy in the United States and the second most frequent cause of cancer-related death. One of the most important determinants of CRC survival is lymph node metastasis. To determine whether molecular markers might be prognostic for lymph node metastases, we measured by quantitative real-time RT-PCR the expression levels of 15 cancer-associated genes in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded primary tissues derived from stage I-IV CRC patients with (n=20) and without (n=18) nodal metastases. Using the mean of the 15 genes as an internal reference control, we observed that low expression of β2microglobulin (B2M) was a strong prognostic indicator of lymph node metastases (area under the curve (AUC)=0.85; 95% confidence interval (CI)=0.69-0.94). We also observed that the expression ratio of B2M/Spint2 had the highest prognostic accuracy (AUC=0.87; 95% CI=0.71-0.96) of all potential two-gene combinations. Expression values of Spint2 correlated with the mean of the entire gene set at an R 2 value of 0.97, providing evidence that Spint2 serves not as an independent prognostic gene, but rather as a reliable reference control gene. These studies are the first to demonstrate a prognostic role of B2M at the mRNA level and suggest that low B2M expression levels might be useful for identifying patients with lymph node metastasis and/or poor survival.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1999-2005
Number of pages7
JournalBritish journal of cancer
Volume98
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 17 2008

Keywords

  • Area under the curve
  • Colorectal cancer
  • Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded
  • Gene expression
  • Prognostic assay
  • Real-time PCR

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Oncology
  • Cancer Research

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