Abstract
We previously identified altered lumican expression in prostate tumors from genetically modified mice. Lumican is a small leucine-rich extracellular matrix protein that has been shown to modulate cell migration and proliferation during embryonic development, and tissue repair. Expression and distinct glycosylation patterns of lumican in several tumor and stromal tissues has been shown to play important roles in vascular invasion, differentiation, proliferation, and invasion. To determine a possible role for lumican as a prognostic biomarker for prostate cancer, we examined protein expression in normal and tumor specimens from prostatectomy cases. Tissue microarrays were constructed and immunostained for lumican. Slides were digitized and the expression levels of lumican were scored in both the stroma and epithelia. Expression scores were compared with clinicopathological features and disease progression, defined as death or biochemical recurrence. Stromal Lumican expression in tumor was negatively associated with Gleason score, differentiation, node/metastasis status and disease progression. Progression free survival was significantly longer for patients with high expression of stromal lumican (HR=0.25; P=0.005). Based on this set, stromal expression of lumican correlated to good clinical outcome for patients with prostate cancer and thus appears to be a strong prognostic biomarker for disease progression.
Citation Format: Marco A. De Velasco, Yuji Hatanaka, Yurie Kura, Naomi Ando, Emiko Fukushima, Yutaka Yamamoto, Nobutaka Shimizu, Masahiro Nozawa, Kazuhiro Yoshimura, Kazuhiro Yoshikawa, Kazuto Nishio, Hirotsugu Uemura. A role for lumican as a biomarker of disease progression in human prostate adenocarcinoma. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 8. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-8