RESUMO
BACKGROUND/AIMS: Mortality rates due to gastric cancer are high in Japan. To improve patient prognosis, new biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment are urgently required. In this study we investigated the role of CD24, a cell adhesion glycoprotein implicated in tumor cell proliferation, which is used as a prognostic marker in various cancers. METHODOLOGY: We analyzed CD24 expression in 173 gastric adenocarcinomas by immunohistochemistry and compared the data with clinicopathological parameters and patient overall survival. Furthermore, we performed Western blotting analysis of CD24 in six human gastric adenocarcinoma cell lines, Kato III, MKN1, MKN28, MKN45, MKN74, and HGC-27. RESULTS: CD24 up-regulation was significantly correlated with depth of invasion (p=0.005) and pathological high stages (p=0.043). We observed a relationship between high CD24 expression and lymph node metastasis, venous invasion and lymphatic invasion. CD24 expression tended to be higher in cell lines derived from differentiated gastric carcinoma, including those derived from lymph node metastasis. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that gastric cancer patients with high CD24 expression should be closely monitored for recurrence following resections. CD24 expression is a potential biomarker for gastric cancer prognosis and provides a new molecular target for therapeutic strategies.