Clinical significance of GCNT3 expression in non-small cell lung cancer / 中国肿瘤临床

ABSTRACT

Objective: To investigate the expression of glycosyltransferase enzyme 3 (GCNT3) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tis-sues and corresponding normal tissues, and to further explore the relationship between GCNT3 expression and clinicopathological fea-tures, overall survival (OS), and progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with NSCLC. Methods: In this study, we used quantitative re-al-time polymerase chain reaction and Western blot to assess the mRNA and protein expression of GCNT3 in paired NSCLC and non-tu-mor tissues. In addition, 164 NSCLC patients were estimated for GCNT3 expression by immunohistochemistry, and the correlation be-tween GCNT3 expression and clinicopathological features was evaluated. Further, the effects of GCNT3 on the proliferation, invasion, and migration abilities of NSCLC cells were studied. Results: The mRNA and protein expression levels of GCNT3 in NSCLC tissues were both significantly higher than those in the corresponding non-tumor tissues. Among the 164 patients with NSCLC, high GCNT3 expres-sion was associated with gender, smoking, histology, pathological stage, and lymph node metastasis. Kaplan-Meier analysis displayed significant differences in OS and PFS among the groups exhibiting differences in GCNT3 expression (P<0.05). The NSCLC patients with increased GCNT3 expression showed poor OS and PFS. A multivariate analysis demonstrated that GCNT3 expression was as an inde-pendent prognostic factor for NSCLC (P<0.05). Cell function experiments showed that the proliferation, invasion, and migration abili-ties of NSCLC cells were significantly attenuated after inhibition of GCNT3 expression (P<0.05). Conclusions: High expression of GCNT3 was associated with unfavorable OS and PFS in patients with NSCLC; GCNT3 might, therefore, act as a prognostic biomarker for NSCLC.