[Correlation between adipokine and clinicopathological features and prognosis in upper tract urothelial carcinoma].

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the correlation between expression levels of adipokine and clinicopathological features and prognosis of patients with upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) based on immunohistochemical staining and bioinformatics analysis. METHODS: The 8 adipokines in this study included adiponectin (AdipoQ), leptin (LEP), interleukin (IL)-6, IL-10 and their receptors (AdipoR1, AdipoR2, LEPR, IL-6R, IL-10RA, IL-10RB). Tissue samples of patients with UTUC who underwent surgical treatment in Peking University People's Hospital from January 2014 to April 2021 were selected for immunohistochemical staining. Their quantitative gene expression data were calculated by H-Score, and relevant clinical and follow-up data were collected retrospectively. Transcription group sequencing data of UTUC patients in Gene Expression Omnibus database (GSE134292 dataset) were downloaded for comparison. Chi-square test or t-test was used to compare the expression level of adipokine between non-muscle invasive group and muscle invasive group. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis and Kaplan-Meier survival curve were utilized to analyze independent predictors of overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), intravesical recurrence-free survival (IVRFS) in the both cohorts. The P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: In the study, 63 tissue samples of the patients with UTUC who underwent surgical treatment in Peking University People's Hospital and 57 UTUC patients in GSE134292 dataset were selected. In immunohistochemical cohort, the expressions of AdipoQ (P=0.003 6), AdipoR1 (P=0.006 5), LEP (P=0.007 7), IL-10 (P=0.006 9), and IL-10RA (P=0.008 9) were statistically higher in muscle invasive group. In GSE134292 cohort, the expressions of AdipoR1 (P=0.000 4), AdipoR2 (P=0.000 4), IL-6 (P=0.005 0), IL-10 (P=0.001 7), and IL-10RA (P=0.008 1) were statistically higher in muscle invasive group. Kaplan-Meier survival curve and multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that high IL-10RA expression was an independent predictive factor of IVRFS (P=0.044, HR=0.996, 95%CI 0.992-0.998) in immunohistochemical cohort, which was confirmed in GSE134292 cohort (P=0.014, HR=0.515, 95%CI 0.304-0.873). CONCLUSION: The expression levels of AdipoQ, AdipoR1, IL-10, and IL-10RA were correlated with tumor stage, suggesting that these adipokines played important roles in tumor progression. IL-10RA was an independent predictor of IVRFS, suggesting that IL-10 and its receptor played a critical role in tumor recurrence.