Clinical correlation of nuclear survivin in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

To examine the correlation of survivin (both total and nuclear survivin) with clinicopathological parameters of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients. Tumors and non-tumor tissues near the proximal resection margins were resected from ESCC patients undergone esophagectomy. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was performed to detect survivin mRNA expression level in the 10 paired tumor and adjacent non-tumor tissues. To confirm with the clinical situation, survivin mRNA and protein expression were measured by qPCR and immunoblot, respectively, in 5 ESCC cell lines and a non-neoplastic esophageal epithelial cell line. Immunohistochemistry was employed to reveal the cellular localization of survivin in tumor tissues isolated from the 64 ESCC patients undergone surgery alone. Up-regulation of survivin mRNA and protein was found in 5 ESCC lines (HKESC-1, HKESC-2, HKESC-3, HKESC-4, and SLMT-1) when compared to a non-neoplastic esophageal epithelial cell line NE-1. In particular, HKESC-3, HKESC-4, and SLMT-1 cells demonstrated ~50-fold increase in survivin mRNA. High level of survivin mRNA in tumor tissues when compared to non-tumor tissues was found in 70 % (7 of 10) of clinical cases. The increase in expression ranged from ~twofold to ~16-fold. Immunohistochemistry results showed that survivin was found at the cell nuclei in all specimens examined. Nuclear expression of survivin was inversely associated with the likelihood of developing nodal metastasis (p = 0.021) and significantly associated with early-stage ESCC (p = 0.039). Nuclear survivin could serve as a marker for indicating disease status in ESCC patients.

Cytoplasmic Forkhead box M1 (FoxM1) in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma significantly correlates with pathological disease stage.

UNLABELLED: Esophageal cancer is a deadly cancer with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) as the major type. Until now there has been a lack of reliable prognostic markers for this malignancy. This study aims to investigate the clinical correlation between Forkhead box M1 (FoxM1)and patients' parameters in ESCC. METHODS: Immunohistochemistry was performed to investigate the expression and localization of FoxM1 in 64ESCC tissues and 10 nontumor esophageal tissues randomly selected from 64 patients before these data were used for clinical correlations. RESULTS: Cytoplasmic and nuclear expressions of FoxM1 were found in 63 and 16 of the 64 ESCC tissues, respectively.Low cytoplasmic expression of FoxM1 was correlated with early pathological stage in ESCC (P = 0.018),while patients with nuclear FoxM1 were younger in age than those without nuclear expression (P\0.001).Upregulation of FoxM1 mRNA was found in five ESCCcell lines (HKESC-1, HKESC-2, HKESC-3, HKESC-4,and SLMT-1) when compared to non-neoplastic esophageal squamous cell line NE-1 using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Except for HKESC-3, all studied ESCC cell lines demonstrated a high expression of FoxM1 protein using immunoblot. A high mRNA level of FoxM1 was observed in all of the ESCC tissues examined when compared to their adjacent nontumor tissues using qPCR. CONCLUSION: Cytoplasmic FoxM1 was correlated with pathological stage and might be a biomarker for advanced ESCC.

Establishment and characterization of a new xenograft-derived human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cell line HKESC-4 of Chinese origin.

A new human esophageal cancer cell line, HKESC-4, was established from a nude-mouse xenograft of a moderately differentiated esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) developed from a 65-year-old Hong Kong Chinese man. The cellular characteristics (morphological, electron microscopic, and immunohistochemical studies), tumorigenicity in athymic nude mice, cytogenetic features, and DNA ploidy of the cell line were investigated. The cell line was maintained in vitro for 17 months and passaged 80 times. HKESC-4 grew as a monolayer, with a doubling time of 63 hours. The epithelial nature of HKESC-4 included the presence of cytokeratin intermediate filaments, as shown by antibodies (AE1/AF3, CAM5.2, and MAK 6), and the presence of the tonofilaments, as seen under electron microscopy. HKESC-4 was tumorigenic in nude mice and had DNA aneuploidy. The cytogenetic abnormalities of HKESC-4 included -1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6, -7, -8, -9, -10, -11, -12, -15, -16, -17, -18, -19, +20, -21, -22, +del(11)(p11), +i(11)(q10), and +21 marker chromosomes. Comparative genomic hybridization analysis demonstrated chromosomal gains at 1p36.13, 3q23 approximately q28, 5p15.33 approximately p15.1, 6p25.1 approximately p22.3, 7p21.3 approximately p11.2, 7q11.21 approximately q21.13, 8q23.3 approximately q23.3, 11p11.2, 11q12.1 approximately q13.2, 14q21.3 approximately q32.2, 17p13.3, 18p11.32 approximately p11.31, and 20p13 approximately p12.2 and chromosomal losses at 1q12, 2p25.1 approximately p24.3, 13p13 approximately p11.2, 21p, 22p13 approximately p11.2, and Y. The newly established cell line HKESC-4 promises to be a useful tool in future studies of molecular pathogenesis and therapeutics in ESCC.